Israel Adesanya

Israel Mobolaji Temitayo Odunayo Oluwafemi Owolabi Adesanya is a Nigerian-New Zealander professional mixed martial artist and former kickboxer, born in Lagos on 22 July 1989.¹² He is a two-time UFC middleweight champion: he unified the title in 2019 and defended it five times in his first reign, regained it in 2023, and lost it later that year.¹ His fighting style, built on kickboxing and movement, earned him the nickname "The Last Stylebender", from the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender.¹

Adesanya was born in Lagos to a Yoruba family and settled with his family in Rotorua, New Zealand, when he was ten; he attended Rotorua Boys' High School.¹ He took up kickboxing at eighteen, inspired by the film Ong-Bak, and built a professional kickboxing career that took him to Glory, where he won the middleweight contender tournament in 2016 and challenged for the Glory middleweight championship.¹

Adesanya won the interim UFC middleweight championship on 13 April 2019, beating Kelvin Gastelum at UFC 236; the bout was later inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame's Fight Wing.¹ On 6 October 2019, at UFC 243, he knocked out Robert Whittaker in the second round to unify the championship, and defended it five times in his first reign.¹ He lost the title to his old kickboxing rival Alex Pereira by fifth-round knockout at UFC 281 on 12 November 2022, then regained it by knocking Pereira out in the second round at UFC 287 on 8 April 2023, becoming the first two-time UFC middleweight champion.¹ He lost the title to Sean Strickland by unanimous decision at UFC 293 on 10 September 2023, in one of the biggest upsets in UFC history, and lost a further title challenge against Dricus du Plessis in August 2024 and a bout against Nassourdine Imavov in February 2025.¹ A documentary about his life, Stylebender, premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2023.¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum. Neither Wikipedia article nor Wikidata makes any statement of Adesanya's religion.¹³² Press coverage of his beliefs conflicts. MMA News, rounding up his statements in August 2024, reported that he grew up in a religious (Christian) household, questioned at Sunday school "who made God", and concluded that "Adesanya openly follows no religion" but has described a spiritual path, while noting a Christian bent in some of his tweets and his appearance at a 2023 church service.⁴ Weeks later, Pulse Sports Nigeria reported his speaking at a Celestial Church of Christ service in Lagos after UFC 305 and framed him as a member of that church whose faith helps him in and out of the ring; the words it quotes from him speak of faith in general terms.⁵ Because an upbringing is background, and one event report describing church membership stands against his own recorded statements that he follows no religion ardently, his faith is recorded in the museum's data as unknown.⁴⁵

• Israel Adesanya — English Wikipedia¹
• Israel Adesanya — Arabic Wikipedia³
• Israel Adesanya — Wikidata Q27050195²
• Does Israel Adesanya Follow A Religion? — MMA News⁴
• Israel Adesanya discloses how Christian faith helps him — Pulse Sports Nigeria⁵