After dismantling his latest UFC middleweight title challenger, Israel Adesanya stated that defeating Paulo Costa was the 100th 1-outs win of his career. That definitely includes Adesanya's journey through the mixed martial arts underworld and probably includes a bunch of boxing bouts in the Super 8 Boxing tournament where Adesanya fought Brian Minto - less than a year after Minto had lost to Joseph Parker. 100 combat wins, capped off with eight wins in a row upon entering the UFC's rather hefty middleweight division.

With every UFC fight, Adesanya has grown in various ways. The scrapping aspect has seen Adesanya deal with wrestlers who were eager to test Adesanya's grappling, different body sizes, shapes and tactics as well as Adesanya winning in various ways; five decisions, four finishes and wins in each round except the fourth round. At the same time, Adesanya has settled into a groove where he oozes star-power, has an aura of mana and sprinkles enlightenment all over the fight business.

Factor the above into an equation where the UFC is perhaps the most influential combat sports organisation in the world. Throughout Adesanya's time with the UFC, the profile of the UFC has grown and it's only natural that as the UFC bulldozed it's way through the 2020 pando, right now Adesanya is the UFC's biggest star. The UFC has put various other sports and combat sports in the shade to rise to the top, where Adesanya sits as the young international matua.

Adesanya started his dismantling of Costa by putting a target on Costa's left knee/calf. That was Costa's lead leg and Adesanya landed 15 of 16 kicks to Costa's leg in the first round alone, followed by a second round in which Adesanya landed a left high kick to the right side of Costa's noggin and then bombarded Costa with punching combinations.

Bombarded is the wrong word, yet the right word. Adesanya doesn't throw reckless punches and that was evident in his very first UFC fight against Aussie Rob Wilkinson as Adesanya was clearly all over Wilkinson and fired off every punch with patience and precision. Adesanya bombards in his own way and while this doesn't involve a flurry of wild blows, it must surely feel like a war-zone as crisp blows are coming in from all angles as Adesanya sees fit.

The early leg kicks set up everything else in this fight. This is a rather typical tactic of City Kickboxing and while there are elements such as fakes, early leg kicks and exceptional takedown defence that are key aspects of the CKB style, ignoring the weird Yoel Romero contest, Adesanya's wins over Robert Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum didn't have such a focus on the early leg kicks.

Against Gastelum, Adesanya popped off 3 of 4 kicks to Gastelum's legs in the first round. Against Whittaker, Adesanya went 2 from 2 with the leg kicks in the first round. In both fights across the whole fight (five rounds vs Gastelum, two rounds vs Whittaker) Adesanya didn't fire more than 10 leg kicks in a round. Compare that to what Adesanya did to Costa and this is a minor example of the wizardry of CKB kaumatua Eugene Bareman and CKB in general as this is just a wrinkle of what Adesanya does.

Slide back to Dan Hooker's wins over Al Iaquinta and Paul Felder where this early leg kick ploy was laid out in similar fashion. First up was 13 of 14 leg kicks in the first round vs Iaquinta, then 15 of 19 leg kicks vs Felder. This is a way for CKB fighters to control distance, to build damage and set up the wrinkles of the game plan that they have set up.

A low key thing for Adesanya in this fight was the variety of kicks he rolled through. Adesanya swung his right leg to the outside of Costa's left knee/calf and also sprinkled in stomping kicks to the front of Costa's left knee or just above. Then came the left high kick that cut Costa above his right eye.

After 4 of 17 shots to Costa's head in the first round, while smashing the front leg, Adesanya then landed 20 of 34 shots to Costa's head in the second round. I'm far from a 1-outs expert, but have put in the reps to learn some of this stuff as Aotearoa's UFC presence exploded and this felt like a clear case of Adesanya taking the first round to assess distance, to control that distance and use his third-eye to gauge Costa's activities.

These snaps are all from the first round where Adesanya is on the two black lines, or behind the two black lines. These lines serve as a gauge of where a fighter is at inside the octagon and usually, a dominant fighter will control the middle and push their opponent back behind these lines towards the cage. Adesanya operated behind these lines in the first round while landing those kicks from a distance and easily evading the sporadic Costa flurry...

In the second round, Adesanya is closer to the middle where he threw a high kick early in the round, then landed the high kick.

Being in the middle with Adesanya is not good. Adesanya finished Whittaker in the middle of the octagon and I reckon with space to slip and slide his opponents strikes, as well as space to throw all his weapons including fakes is a nightmare for Adesanya's opponents. That Whittaker fight also involved a first round of absorbing data, then the finish in the second round.

I'm going to let this all simmer for another day before bouncing back for any more Adesanya thoughts, more specifically I'll dive into an epic win for Brad Riddell and losses for Kai Kara-France and Shane Young. Riddell now has three wins in a row in the UFC and picked apart his opponent Alex da Silva which deserves a closer inspection. Right now on this Monday, it's about the UFC's biggest star and the best fighter on the planet.

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Peace and love.