Daniel Cormier questions Israel Adesanya motivation

Daniel Cormier wonders how Israel Adesanya will compete heading into his first non-title UFC main event in years.

Adesanya (24-4 MMA, 13-4 UFC) faces Nassourdine Imavov (15-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 250 main event (ESPN+) at ANB Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Chael Sonnen suggested that Adesanya has to find an enemy to be fueled for the fight. While Cormier thinks Adesanya is taking the fight seriously, he’s curious to see how deep he’s willing to dig in the championship rounds.

“So like when that moment happens, like against (Kelvin) Gastelum, and he was in the corner in the fifth round and he went, ‘I’ll die for this,’ and he was like mouthing to himself, ‘I’ll die for this, I’ll die for this,’ he had money,” Cormier said on “Good Guy/Bad Guy” with Sonnen. “He was a kickboxing champion, but he was fighting for an interim championship with the opportunity to get to Robert Whitaker to become the unified champion. He didn’t have money at the rate that he has right now. He didn’t have the zeros in the bank account. He didn’t have the accolades. He did not have the notoriety. He’ll find himself in that fourth to fifth round with Imavov this weekend and have to dig deep knowing that nothing changes if he doesn’t, right? Nothing changes.

“Israel Adesanya will still be a star if he wins or he loses. Israel Adesanya will still collect the same paycheck on Saturday night if he loses. The money he has in the bank remains the same. All of his investments and properties will remain the same. How does he pull back to that moment when he didn’t have all those things if need be? I never in my life fought a five-round main event that wasn’t for a championship, and I’ve got to be honest: I don’t think that I could. I don’t think I could have went 25 minutes without knowing that there was a shiny gold belt waiting on the end of that because it’s hard to pull that dog out of you whenever you don’t get that thing that means so much when the night’s over.”

Former champion Adesanya will look to snap a two-fight losing skid after back-to-back title losses to Sean Strickland and Dricus Du Plessis. He hasn’t competed in a five-round, non-title bout since defeating Brad Tavares by unanimous decision in July 2018.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC Fight Night 250.