UFC 276: Israel Adesanya explains why Alexander Volkanovski is a 'living legend'

Israel Adesanya has explained why he believes Alexander Volkanovski is a living legend in mixed martial arts.

There are many elite gyms and teams within MMA that have all been able to make their own respective impact on the sport. Across the last few years, though, City Kickboxing has been able to outshine the majority of them – and they’ve done so with some of the best fighters on the planet at their disposal.

Two such examples of that are Israel Adesanya: the UFC’s middleweight king, and Alexander Volkanovski: the UFC’s featherweight king.

While they may come from New Zealand and Australia respectively, they’ve both made giant leaps forward under the tutelage of Eugene Bareman and CKB, with Volkanovski also spending a lot of time training back home.

As they both prepare to return to the Octagon on Saturday night, the pair have recorded some content together that includes Adesanya explaining why he thinks Volkanovski is up there with the very best.

“You inspire me, especially even your latest performances. The way you got out of that triangle [against Ortega], and then went to work straight away. I know I have it in me because I’ve done it before, like in certain fights, but when I saw the way you did that, it reinvigorated this thing in me where I was just like ‘f***’, he was deep in the f***ing waters, he was drowning and then he came back up and beat the f*** out of the shark. It took like 11 seconds, they picked him up, I thought it was over.

“Honestly man, I feel like that was the fight that made you a legend. You already beat Aldo, Mendes all that before, but that was the fight that made you a living legend.”

This weekend at UFC 276, Israel Adesanya will defend his 185-pound crown against Jared Cannonier in the