Israel Adesanya could fight in KSW? The sports director explains

Israel Adesanya could hit and fight in the KSW federation in the past. The sports director explained and talked about the idea of contracting the excellent kickboxer.

Wojslaw Rysiewski was a guest on the Sports Channel, where he answered many questions. The KSW federation’s sporting director at one point commented on would-be transfers, and unexpectedly the name of the former UFC champion was mentioned.

Maciej Turski asked Wojslaw Rysiewski if there was a fighter in whose case the KSW sporting director regretted not being able to contract him. Rysiewski first stated that he doesn’t like such questions, as he would need to dig deeper into the subject.

After a while, however, KSW’s sports director revealed the name of such a fighter. It turns out that he was Israel Adesanya, whom Rysiewski came across while perusing the rankings of the middleweight division.

– It always comes to mind, only it was never close to being contracted. I say right away because I’ve told this story before and immediately there was pressure: “This one for sure”. I remember that situation and it kind of always makes me laugh. I laugh a little bit at myself. When Michal Materla got out of jail and we were thinking about some rival, well I was looking through fightmatrix rankings and looking one by one, well we didn’t have any particular name on the contract, so I had to look for someone new.

Wojslaw Rysiewski explained what made him decide not to reach for the excellent striker, who later reached for the UFC title.

– Well, and I say: there’s this Israel Adesanya, a Nigerian flag fighter, fighting in this New Zealand. I say, gee I’ll contract him, nice guy fights, but nobody knows him here in Europe. Well, and nothing like that…. I’ll probably still get booed that he’s some bum because he hasn’t beaten anyone. No no, this Paulo Thiago better because he’s an ex-policeman, with BOPE he’s the one who will sell out because acctually Michael had these transitions with policemen, let’s take this Paulo Thiago.

The situation took place in 2017, that is, even before Stylebender found his way to the UFC organization. Of course, in retrospect, one can regret that such a fighter did not fight in Poland, but on the other hand, it is worth taking into account that Izzy was not a world star at the time, and probably would not have become one if he had decided to anchor in KSW.