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Israel Adesanya (aka. The Last Stylebender) is the reigning, undisputed UFC Middleweight Champion. He has a pristine fight record of 20 wins and 0 losses and is widely regarded as one of the best strikers in the world of MMA.
Now he’s levelling up to a whole new weight class — challenging Jan Blachowicz for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. They go head to head on 6th March 2021.
We were lucky enough to get an exclusive snapshot of Israel’s life in the lead up to what may be the biggest fight of his career yet.
On The Wall is a documentary series where we follow some of our top Myprotein athletes in the run up to big events, showing what it really takes to be the best of the best.
These inspiring individuals truly embody what it means to be #ForeverFit.
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See more from Israel here: https://bit.ly/2ZExjhM
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At Myprotein it’s our mission to #FuelYourAmbition and push you forwards on your #ForeverFit journey.
We’re here for active men and women who want to invest in themselves mentally and physically — for the long run.
Only expert-backed advice. No quick fixes — just the facts.
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0:00
it feels like i'm actually going to war
0:04
i don't consciously think i'm not coming
0:06
back but it's like it feels like i'm not
0:07
coming back
0:10
i'm going into the unknown because as
0:11
much as you prepare and you know what's
0:13
going to happen and you know the outcome
0:14
you visualize
0:15
you're still venturing into the unknown
0:17
and you have to be comfortable with that
0:20
so i get comfortable with the unknown i
0:22
get you know comfortable in the chaos
0:27
you know people don't understand it
0:28
because they're not really in it like me
0:30
and i've had people who
0:32
lost their lives to this game so i take
0:34
it very seriously
0:37
because this is life or death at the end
0:39
of the day
0:56
so
1:02
and when i wake up i hit snooze
1:05
it's probably like the first thing i do
1:08
so i hit it once and by the second time
1:11
i get up
1:12
then yeah just look after myself brush
1:13
my teeth wash my face
1:16
and then i get out to my spot over there
1:19
and i just um
1:20
start the day right by meditating and
1:23
that's just
1:26
i guess set myself up to win that day
1:28
and i'll be honest it's not every day i
1:30
get to do it because you know
1:32
i am human and i'm flawed but when i get
1:34
to do it i realize it helps me set my
1:36
day up nicely
1:38
sets me up on a good note sets me up to
1:40
win
1:42
once i get that done i'll you know have
1:46
some like a liquid breakfast like you
1:48
know a protein shake
1:50
that i make nah that
1:54
because i ran out of milk no we have
1:58
light milk i guess that'll be all right
2:01
it's our usual
2:02
blend as well of flavors mixed berries
2:05
and cookies and cream
2:11
every time without fail
2:15
it's just that good
2:18
a little bit more professional now so
2:20
yeah
2:22
growing up growing up
2:25
and then once i get to the gym i get to
2:34
work
2:37
looking back on those where i first
2:39
walked into this gym and
2:41
the product if you like of what we have
2:44
now
2:45
completely different completely
2:47
different and now he's a
2:49
he's an expert at what he does you're
2:51
talking about a guy who's at more than
2:53
100 fights so someone who's
2:54
uh rinsed and repeated this and refined
2:57
this
2:58
over 100 times so you better be good at
3:01
something if you've done it that many
3:02
times
3:04
first thing i did was have pads with
3:05
eugene and our last hard week so
3:09
just finalizing certain details on the
3:13
on the patterns we've we've picked the
3:16
shots we've picked
3:18
that we that we feel will put the sky
3:20
away
3:21
or put him in trouble
3:24
what is the same as that
3:28
the confidence he is now is the same
3:29
confidence he had when he walked through
3:31
the doors
3:32
there's one thing i noticed that hasn't
3:33
changed it's just the same over and
3:35
over and over again so it's just muscle
3:37
memory it just becomes
3:39
part of my arsenal it's embedded in my
3:42
in my system
3:55
yeah pretty much this morning just
3:56
getting my work in with um eugene on the
3:58
pads um
4:00
finalizing what we're going to do come
4:03
march 6th
4:04
of 7th in new zealand um yeah so this is
4:07
the last hard week of training the last
4:09
hard push
4:11
did some mma some drills and then play a
4:13
little fun game at the end
4:15
but then halfway through mma i got um
4:17
pulled up by
4:18
usada to um do a drug test so
4:21
yeah i've been selling drinks now just
4:23
kind of like
4:25
i guess uh induce the piss because i
4:29
have to give 120 mils
4:31
of that good that good good that good
4:34
stuff
4:35
good things take time can't rush this so
4:36
i just have to build up
4:40
this is my last hard week of training so
4:42
all i do is pretty much eat sleep try
4:44
and repeat
4:45
and i have trained and i'm about to go
4:48
eat and then sleep and i wake up
4:52
and repeat so yeah peace
5:00
i don't really socialize much i like
5:01
being by myself and my close people
5:04
at this time when it's like a week out
5:05
from the fight
5:07
i don't really frantise too much because
5:09
i don't need any outside
5:11
influences or distractions i i like to
5:14
go down
5:15
to my um instagram like my first post
5:20
like two or three times a year just to
5:21
kind of see how i've grown how far i've
5:23
come
5:24
yeah i forget i'm the champ all the time
5:27
because i just see myself as israel
5:28
dyson and i forget like oh yeah that's
5:30
right you're badass you're on tv
5:32
millions of people watch you because i
5:34
don't put myself on that pedestal
5:36
come look my new studio that's my
5:38
brother david
5:40
howard get the out
5:43
he's just a producer but yeah
5:46
i'm gonna get onto this
5:47
it's so twixty so we have to bring this
5:50
forward right
5:51
yeah yeah yeah i just have it behind so
5:53
i can just
5:54
superimpose the the image on the screen
5:57
behind me
5:59
yeah i think he'll be sick hey
6:06
yeah israel going up a weight class
6:08
we've taken on a relatively uncommon
6:10
approach we're
6:11
not going to worry about any extra added
6:14
weight
6:15
we're just going to prepare for the
6:17
opponent we're going to come in how we
6:18
normally come into the fight
6:21
everything's being the same and the same
6:23
thing is always looking at the guy in
6:24
front of us
6:26
and crafting a master plan on how to
6:28
take him out
6:37
and that's been the same thing this camp
6:39
we didn't do anything out of the
6:40
ordinary
6:42
we didn't do anything didn't get us to
6:43
the dance we didn't
6:45
you know go put out all this
6:48
muscle that everyone expected me to do i
6:50
don't know why
6:51
people i was really surprised that a lot
6:52
of the experts even were like you know
6:54
how much are you putting on how much
6:55
muscle you putting on for this photos
6:57
i'm
6:58
none i'm just chilling you know but
7:01
everyone
7:02
always the same thing that they say when
7:04
they meet me for the first time i'm
7:05
gonna go you're a little bigger than i
7:06
thought
7:08
like yeah they're always surprised when
7:09
they end it with me it's a lot different
7:11
when you're in there with me as well and
7:12
i'm moving in front of you and i'm
7:14
hating you and i'm not getting hit and
7:16
then like
7:18
this is a lot different than i thought
7:20
so yeah the same
7:21
same different fight same
7:23
different fight i'll keep that
7:29
be honest like because the last hard
7:30
weekend and since i don't know
7:32
my body just starts to feel the the
7:35
weight of everything but by friday
7:37
i would have recovered and then start to
7:39
peak again
7:41
and then i get held back next week for
7:42
fight week a lot and then my body's just
7:44
frothing
7:45
my mind's just frothing to get at it to
7:48
get active again
7:57
they watch videos they watch videos
7:58
early on way early on even before the
8:00
camp starts and then they devise a plan
8:03
adam like watches hours of footage and
8:05
then breaks it down
8:06
frame by frame and devises a plan on
8:09
like
8:10
what the guy likes to do and how we're
8:12
gonna take care of that
8:14
what his habits are as well and yeah
8:17
from there then
8:18
they start to like you know get me
8:20
working on the pads on the grappling
8:23
the the the things i need to work on
8:25
from then so it's all just physical the
8:27
mental bit's always there
8:28
so like the first four weeks of camp i'm
8:30
just like yeah my body's like yay
8:33
we're on the cab feel so strong ah
8:37
then my week five is like
8:41
because you can only put your foot on
8:42
the gas for so long and anything like if
8:44
i
8:44
in my car put my foot on the gas it'll
8:46
blow the engine eventually because you
8:48
can't
8:48
rev the redline at that long
8:51
so i have to i have to balance that but
8:53
then the mindset
8:55
it's just experience to be honest
8:56
experience in this game it's more it
8:59
comes more natural to me not because
9:00
i've just done it so much
9:02
but it's still more there's still more
9:04
to learn like these times closest to the
9:06
fight
9:07
like three weeks out two weeks out is
9:09
when i start to like
9:10
i go bush within and if you know what
9:13
going bush means like that's when you
9:15
just like off into the bush and you
9:16
just
9:17
get away from everyone but i do that
9:18
within i start to detach from
9:20
my close people my loved ones
9:23
and it's not doing it in a way where
9:25
it's malicious i just detach because i
9:27
have to
9:30
i guess surrender i have to do the work
9:32
that i have
9:33
to within and to do that i needed like
9:37
i need to just detach yeah i don't know
9:41
if that makes sense for most people buy
9:42
it just helps me
9:44
prepare for what i have to do because
9:46
this is life or death at the end of the
9:47
day
9:49
i take it very seriously
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