'Walkout to knockout': Inside Israel Adesanya's big UFC 243 entrance - ESPN

Jese Tuivoavoa was a student at Rotorua Boys' High School in New Zealand in 2004 when he first met Israel Adesanya. The two were in their early teens and were introduced by a mutual friend during physical education class.

Throughout his childhood, Adesanya had already been dancing. He learned the street dance «popping,» similar to break-dancing, when he lived in Ghana for a short time before moving to New Zealand. And during that gym class, Tuivoavoa recalled Adesanya showing off some of those popping skills, doing «roundoff backflips on the mat area.»

Tuivoavoa had never danced before, but he was immediately intrigued. Adesanya asked him if he wanted to learn.

«He's like, 'Come to my house on the weekend and we can get started,'» Tuivoavoa told ESPN. «And I was like, 'Yes, say less.'»

Fifteen years after teaching him how to dance — and with Tuivoavoa now part of Raw and Rugged, one of the top dance troupes in Australia — Adesanya contacted Tuivoavoa with a favor. Adesanya, then the interim UFC middleweight champion, would attempt to unify the titles against undisputed champion Robert Whittaker at UFC 243 on Oct. 6, 2019. The event would be in front of 57,127 people at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, where Tuivoavoa lived.

Adesanya also called another old friend, Jay Kapene, who would dance in the streets of Little Rotorua on New Zealand's North Island with Adesanya and Tuivoavoa for tips when they were teens. The trio would then take the change and go to the local arcade to play games such as Street Fighter. Adesanya and Tuivoavoa, along with some others, were part of a group called Broken Native, which Adesanya has tattooed across his chest.

At UFC 243, those three and dancer Te Manawanui Paraha, who dances with Tuivoavoa