After making an appearance at UFC 244 to watch a couple a bad motherfuckers scrap and keep an eye on his division, Israel Adesanya embarked on a gauntlet of interviews in United States of America. In an interview with Ariel Helwani, Paradigm Sports confirmed that Adesanya had joined the Paradigm team to be managed by the same folks who represent Conor McGregor and thus, I started to ponder Adesanya’s status as Aotearoa’s biggest global sports start right now.

And Adesanya is definitely Aotearoa’s biggest global sports star right now.

Very few kiwi athletes have done extensive interview/podcast runs in USA like Adesanya and off the top of my head, no one has made one appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience … let alone two. This was Adesanya’s second JRE appearance and this is kinda the second wave of the USA media run from Adesanya as he did this on a smaller scale previously. For example, Adesanya previously went on The Breakfast Club and this time around he went to rival New York radio station Hot 97 for an interview and Adesanya has also previous appeared twice on Flagrant 2 with comedian Andrew Schulz.

There is literally no other kiwi athlete commanding this level of attention, hence such extensive Adesanya coverage needs to be highlighted and celebrated. There is some repetition of stories and ideas, which is to be expected when churning out all this content, but it’s sill a great starting spot for anyone to acquaint themselves with Adesanya.