The UFC’s reigning Middleweight Champion, Israel Adesanya, has shown that greatness never stops learning as he recently took a trip to ATOS headquarters. While there, he learned a lot under the guidance of one the most decorated ADCC champion in history and ATOS founder, Andre Galvao, and plenty of rounds with a host of BJJ World Champions. While Galvao is often known first for his incredible shape and phenomenal athletic performance throughout his career, he is of course one of the greatest Jiu-Jitsu minds of his generation and even one of the best MMA fighters on the planet can learn a lot from him.
Adesanya truly is one of the best MMA fighters around right now too, undefeated in twenty professional fights and already a UFC champion for over a year despite only debuting in the promotion at the beginning of 2018. The vast majority of his success can be attributed to his elite kickboxing background as he has won fifteen of his fights by knockout, including his most recent title-defense against Paulo Costa that earned him performance of the night honors.
With Adesanya putting in the work to take his grappling game to the next level, it’s entirely possible that we get to see his first submission victory as he extends his title-reign over the next few years. At the same time we also might be lucky enough to see Andre Galvao back in action himself, defending his title as ADCC Superfight Champion against Gordon Ryan. The match was originally tentatively scheduled as the headline fight of the ADCC 2021 World Championships, although the tournament has now been delayed until 2022 and there’s no telling what Galvao will choose to do in response to that delay.
The below video of Israel Adesanya training with some of the best grapplers on the planet comes courtesy of the official ATOS Youtube channel:
