Demetrious Johnson believes that it’s time for former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya to call time on his career after his TKO loss to Joe Pyfer last weekend.
“For me, he’s been a middleweight champion. He’s defended the belt multiple times. He has plenty of money. He’s so talented. He can dance. He’s a DJ. Anything he does, he’s going to be successful,” Johnson said on The Ariel Helwani Show.
“So for me, I feel like what made me so in fighting was one, I viewed it was a job. Two, I needed f*cking money, right? When you’re poor and you’re broke, you have a different mindset. When I was cutting weight and I had to cut eight and a half pounds … I was like, I’m not f*cking giving not a dime away to the commission, or my opponent. I’m going to make f*cking weight. There’s a different mindset that goes on when you ain’t got money.
“I’m not saying that now that he has money the mindset has changed but he’s fighting somebody else who’s trying to get to his level. So for me, I’m just like you’ve done everything. Just walk away from the sport. But I think that’s so hard for mixed martial artists or any professional athlete. And I think for me, when I see him fight, I’m like, ‘God, you don’t need to f*cking fight.”
“I would [retire] if I was him. I would.
“I would like to see him retire. There’s nothing else for him to do in mixed martial arts. I think he’s done everything … I think he deserves to relax and enjoy himself and find something else.”
While Johnson’s comments were focused on the financial side of things, another former champion Aljamain Sterling has pin-pointed a decline in Adesanya’s reflexes as part of the problem after the stars fourth loss in a row.
“I think is the main thing that sticks out to me is the reflexes. I just don’t think his reaction time is quite the same as it used to be as sharp,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “I thought if he kept it at range, which he was doing really well in the first round, I thought he could have honestly done that for five…For some reason, he decided to switch and stand in there and trade with him a little bit… exactly where Pyfer needed him.”
