Israel Adesanya says he will fight for the UFC light heavyweight title again: “The story’s not finished yet”

Israel Adesanya is focused on defending his middleweight title but he is open to fighting for light heavyweight gold again.

At UFC 259 in March, Adesanya moved up in weight to face Jan Blachowicz for the light heavyweight title in a try to become a champ-champ. Unfortnately, the fight did not go his way and he lost a decision for his first professional MMA loss.

Since then, Adesanya went back down to middleweight and beat Marvin Vettori for the second time to defend his belt. He will now rematch Robert Whittaker next time out and he says the idea of beating everyone twice excites him.

“The idea of lapping the division is what excites me,” Adesanya said on MMAFighting’s The MMA Hour. “I want to do that. It’s not really about Whittaker. It’s about just over-lapping everyone. That excites me. And also he’s been on a run, he’s beating some tough guys — so to do it again like I did Vettori, just to leave no doubt and just plant a flag in their head and let them know, ‘I own that. That’s mine.’”

Despite the fact, Israel Adesanya is focused on middleweight he still believes he will fight at 205lbs again. He also thinks that fight could be against Jon Jones.

“The story’s not over yet. There’s ways that this can happen, so stay tuned,” Adesanya said. “I’m not a quitter. Like I said, you’ve got to know when to hold them. To know, OK, you’re going to fight another day. I went up to 205, tried my best hand at it, it didn’t work out. So I’m definitely going to fight for that belt again — and depending on who’s holding that belt [it could against Jon Jones], because if you go up to heavyweight, f*ck that up, and then go back down to 205. So, yeah, there’s many ways the story can be written, like one of them Goosebumps (choose your own adventure) books.”

Even though he didn’t have success at light heavyweight in his first go-around, he says he doesn’t dwell on that. However, he knows he will have another chance at redemption and become a champ-champ.

“It’s done. In the past,” Adesanya said. “Why would I hold onto that? I learned something off the mats, so I still pick the lessons, but I don’t hold onto the fact, like, ‘Oh man, I lost.’ Nah, you just went up there, tried to achieve a side mission. I didn’t quite get all the XP points but you got a lot from this, but now I’m back on the main mission, which is defending my crown at 185. And then another time down the road, you open another side mission. So like I said, the game’s not over, the story’s not finished yet.”

Do you think Israel Adesanya will become a champ-champ?