Former UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski is a training partner of former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and he is expecting big things from him when he tries to win back the belt against current champion Dricus du Plessis at UFC 305 on Saturday night.
“I’m expecting a performance from Israel Adesanya, like a proper performance like you’ve seen in the Paulo Costa performance where he goes out and just does it in impressive fashion – only because I think he’s always going to have them skills,” Volkanovski said on YouTube.
“Dricus is very awkward, very unorthodox. He’s got awkward pressure, which is very, very hard for people to deal with, and we’ve seen awkward pressure from Strickland give Izzy problems. But that doesn’t happen to Izzy twice. There’s no way that fight looks the same.
“I think Israel Adesanya is going to put on that type of performance where he gets a crazy finish, and that’s saying something because Dricus is no joke. Dricus is very strong, wrestler, grappler, so Izzy is going to have to be careful of Dricus trying to take him down because I reckon he’s going to have that freakish strength, and he’s got good D’Arce (chokes) and good (other) chokes as well.
“So you’re going to have to be careful. … I feel like something big is coming – I mean, a big finish. I mean highlight-reel Izzy that we’ve seen. That type of finish that we’re going to see from Izzy, which is going to be huge, which just puts him – obviously he’s always been a superstar, just puts him right back where he was not that long ago.”
