Israel Adesanya has revealed that he almost took a short-notice fight against Reiner de Ridder late last year.

“I was going to fight last year, but then I got injured in the gym, and then that opportunity got taken away,” Adesanya said on the Freestyle Bender YouTube channel. “It was a short-notice fight, as well. And I’ve never done one of those, so that would have been exciting.”

Adesanya went on to confirm that his intended opponent was Reiner de Ridder at UFC Fight Night 262 in Vancouver, Canada last October.

“RDR. On five weeks’ notice, six weeks’ notice,” Adesanya said. “I was already training, so I was getting ready for a fight. So it would have been like, ‘Right, I’ve never done this before. You’re fit. Hop in there.’ But then that moment got taken away from me. But that’s, in hindsight, the best thing. Even though I wasn’t happy with it then, it was the best thing.”

Instead, Adesanya is now set to return against Joe Pyfer in the main event of UFC Fight Night 271 in Seattle on March 28th, and he’s eager to show off the full extent of his skills, and in the process hopefully put an end to his three-fight losing streak.

“My ego is still — I want to shine,” Adesanya said. “That’s the thing, I always want to shine. And I will shine. So, I can’t wait. I know I can do, and I feel like people haven’t seen my full array of skills yet, and I just want to show off a lot of skills that I haven’t showed off yet. So, in these fights, not that I’m going to be looking for them, but you’ll see. You’ll see me do things I’ve never done before, because I feel like they’ll be presented to me. …

“I just want to show off. I just want to show skills. I want to display skills, you know? It’s about skills now, making money, making memories, making history.”