UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is fantastic, both inside the cage and on the dance floor. He defended his title at UFC 271 in a highly anticipated rematch against Robert Whittaker and celebrated the success in signature fashion, setting the dance floor on fire with his incredible moves.
Israel Adesanya shared a video on Twitter in which he and his dance crew set it off for a video on Tik Tok as they performed a hip-hop dance. Israel Adesanya has always been fond of dancing. He has always maintained that fighting and dancing are the two things he’s most passionate about in life. During an interview with ESPN, The Last Stylebender explained how dancing impacted his journey of becoming a UFC Champion.
Adesanya revealed that dancing was initially the means to impress his classmates but it later became a form of self-expression which he incorporated into his fighting style. He said” Dancers I feel, they have the best muscle memory on the planet, ’cause they have to drill drill drill. The motivation behind it was just expressions, self-expression. If you are authentically you and express yourself truly, no one can f*ck with you.”
Throwback to when Israel Adesanya broke the UFC’s no dancing walkout policy
Ahead of his title unification bout against Robert Whittaker at UFC 243, Adesanya wanted to make a grand entry by walking out to a choreographed dance routine. However, his ideas were scrapped by UFC president Dana White who said that the promotion doesn’t entertain choreographed dance walk-ins and won’t do so as long as he sits at the helm.
“A choreographed intro walk-in, we do not do here. We will not do as long as I’m here. There are not many scenarios where fight fans want to see men dancing, ever,” White had said. Well, Israel Adesanya finally managed to convince the boss about a choreographed dance walk out and brought the crowd to their feet with a stunning entrance at UFC 243.
“This fight, I was the real main event. It was my show, so I was like, I’m going to do this my way or no way. I knew he [White] would have liked it because it was sick as f*ck. I went out there, I hit my sh*t and it was legendary,” said Adesanya about his walkout and subsequent performance. The Kiwi would go on to knock then defending champion Robert Whittaker out in the second round of their fight and win the middleweight title. The middleweight champion is set to defend his belt against Jared Cannonier next in June.
