UFC: Israel Adesanya in talks for Jan Blachowicz fight, says coach; Dana White will ‘let him do it’

UFC middleweight champ Israel Adesanya has his sights firmly on adding another belt to his collection, and it looks like Dana White is going to grant him the opportunity.

According to head coach Eugene Bareman, the Kiwi-Nigerian has no interest in a rematch with Robert Whittaker and has shifted focus to light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz. UFC president White confirmed at the UFC Vegas 12 post-event press conference on Saturday night that is the plan going forward.

After his evisceration of Paulo Costa at UFC 253 last month, Adesanya laid down the gauntlet to Jared Cannonier to become his next challenger, confident the American would make light work of Whittaker. Instead, Whittaker earned a comfortable decision at UFC 254 to cement his No 1 contender status at middleweight.

“Listen, when the fight was over on Fight Island, I was like, ‘I’m going to have to sit down with this kid [Adesanya] and convince him on why he needs to fight [Robert] Whittaker,” White said. “Whittaker comes out and says he doesn’t want to fight him. Craziest s*** I’ve ever seen. So there’s no arguing with Israel now. I thought Whittaker deserved the shot and Whittaker doesn’t want it so we’ll let him do it.”

Bareman told SCMP MMA Adesanya had no intention of running it back with Whittaker – whom he beat convincingly to win the title last October – and the result now fast-tracks his fighter‘s plans to move to 205 pounds and take on its newly-crowned Polish champion.

“The challenge for myself and the management team is to get that fight over the desk, signed, sealed and delivered,” Bareman said. “Everything is a negotiation with the UFC. I know Dana has been pretty good at taking into account what Israel wants to do and we‘ll just be trying to get that across again.