Eugene Bareman, Israel Adesanya’s coach, confirmed that his fighter’s “little hiatus” is finally over. In line with this, Bareman revealed that the former champ is now “getting ready to take up a potential date should one come up soon.”
Adesanya entered his break after losing the belt to Sean Strickland at UFC 293, sharing his past interviews that the rest would be used for his recovery from the injuries he received from the match. The fighter added that it would be a “long” break, resulting in some negative reactions from some fans and fighters, including light heavyweight champ Alex Pereira, who repeatedly called him out and tried to lure him out of the break. “The Last Stylebender” didn’t respond to this and later revealed that his break wouldn’t take long.
Last month, the New Zealand fighter promised to get back to training by the end of February, and it seems to be the case now. Bareman confirmed the matter in a recent interview with Combat TV and challenged the UFC to name the fighter’s next opponent and next fight date.
“He’s back training, he’s back in the swing of things,” Bareman shared. “Yeah look, we’re training just in case there’s an eventuality of a fight so we’re getting him fit and yeah, he’s getting ready to take up a potential date should one come up soon. He’s basically finished his little hiatus, and he’s ready to come back, so just give us a date, give us an opponent, and we’ll show up.”
Needless to say, Adesanya received several callouts in the past while on break, but the current and most prominent one the fighter is entertaining is the one from middleweight champ Dricus Du Plessis. The two are rumored to be one of the choices to headline the historic UFC 300 card, but there is little chance for this to happen. Aside from Adesanya just starting his training this month, Du Plessis expressed doubt about joining the event in April after fighting last month. Nonetheless, “Stillknocks” showed great interest in appearing at the UFC Africa event with Adesanya.