Israel Adesanya Reflects on Fighting Anderson Silva | Joe Rogan

So you're calculating his movement. Yeah, I'm not doing it this way. I'm doing it like internal muscle memory. Right. Memory. It's your memory of fights and sparring and knowing what you can do versus knowing what you see him doing. Yeah. And just like it's like a dance. So he comes this way. That's super hard to explain to people. They don't understand. While you look at a guy and you're like, listen to me, that guy's going to fuck that guy up. And people go, what are you talking about? I'm like, listen to me. That guy's going to like when Anderson Silver first fought Chris Leiben. Yeah. I remember the odds were like real close. And I pulled a friend of mine. I said, bet the house. Bet the house on Anderson. He goes, are you serious? I go, bet the house. I go, bet the house. I go, this guy's an assassin. This is a different thing. You've seen a different thing. I'm telling you, this is one of the rare, the fucking sky has to fall for him to lose. No one knew. That's the thing. No one knew who he was until that happened. But I watch all those Caged Warriors fight when he was standing in front of Jorge Rivera. Letting him punch him in the face. He's just rolling with it, man. Just rolling with it. He's the interview as well. People don't understand this. Like they said, oh, fucking casuals. They said, I like you. And a lot of experts as well have casual brains because they're like, you know, Israel has no knockout power because he hit Henderson Silver in the face clean. I'm like, you don't understand this. Anderson is playing the game where me and him are playing this game. So when I hit him, I didn't hit him clean. I'm not trying to hit him where he is. I'm trying to hit him where he's going to be. But then he knows that as well. So he'd anticipate that and then pause the distance is just right. So it just nicks him. There's a time I kicked him in the face and I slowed it down to my Instagram. Just went and just like my toes literally. You see my toes and ugly as fuck. Like it just nicked the top lip. And I went, his glass because I felt it. Yeah. So Nick and he goes and we're playing this game. But I literally I was trying to hit him where he's going to be. But then he pause and then the punch would just just so it looked cool. Yeah. Look like I didn't hit him clean. Right. I like he just we're playing this game and people don't understand people who've never fought. They don't understand that game you're playing. Yeah, it was beautiful. Man, I love that fight. People say that fight too. It was boring. I was like, fuck that was iconic, man. That was I wish she had left after that fight, man, because I wanted to be the one. The people are silly. Yeah, that was a great fight. Yeah. But this is people that don't have an appreciation for movement and like what it takes. What it takes. Most people don't know shit about MMA. No, most people don't know shit about everything. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of people out there that are experts. Yeah. I don't know shit about what they're talking about. The thing about Anderson and you is God damn. I would have loved to see that fight when Anderson was 10 years younger. And you are where you're at right now. I'll tell you how it goes. How's it go? Same way it went. You know why? Why? He's never had someone do to him what he's done to people because what I was doing to him, making him jump, making him do, whenever he did this, that's all for Gazy. That's all like, oh, you made me think. Do you know what Fagazy is? I've used it a few times with a meme. Do you know what it means? It's an interesting term. It was, there was a limousine company in New York and they started writing bad checks. And so those checks became Fagazy checks. It's fake. So when someone... Is that Italian? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a limousine company called Fagazy Limousines. Oh, so it's not a real word. No, well it is. Is it an Italian word? It became an expression. Oh, I see. It's Fagazy. Fagazy. Yeah. So this company started writing bad checks, so anytime that something's fake, it's Fagazy. Oh. Yeah. Learn something new every day like FOMO. Yeah. No, but like, yeah, so whenever I'd like faint him or make him jump or make him react, you know, like, ah, I got you. He'd like, mm. Right. Trapping hands come full 52 blocks. Right. But it was no sauce to it. Well, he didn't... Through his career fighting really good fighters, great fighters, but never an elite kickboxer. Yeah. Never an elite world class kickboxer, like a world championship caliber fighter like yourself. Well, not a kickboxer, but definitely some, like you said, good fighters, but the guys, all the guys that he beat of that era, they couldn't last in this era. It's a different time now. The game has changed. The game keeps evolving. And it, like, how do I say it? It's no disrespect, but it's just, it's, it's, if you had me and my prime right now, well, I'm not even in my prime kind of in it. How old are you now? 27? 30? I know. I try. You look good. Thank you so much. Likewise, likewise, likewise. But yeah, it's just pretty much the game of inches, a game of fake, a game of hot gotcha. Right. And I do that better than him. Yeah. I feel that. And dude, this is the guy I've loved and I've, you know, fucking gagged and jizzed about him the whole fucking career. Like he's a fucking, I use the wrong words. Pause. Play. Fast forward. But, uh, like literally like I've fanboyed over the guy as all career and I've studied him. I knew what he was going to do before he do it. Like when he tripped me, I was getting up into my head. I was like, okay, here come that flying knee. And then I did like literally I pressed eject. I was like, get the fuck out of Dodge straight away. I honestly, I was like, I'm not. And then he just had the case. Like at one point even I hit him in the tummy. I don't know what I did. I hit him in the tummy and he touched me in the coming. And I was like, he goes, let me try. I was like, no. We really catch that. Or even when at one point is what when he put his hands down and not like we're playing that game and just went, I went stop doing that. I threw my hands up. I stopped doing that. There's no one on this fucking planet. If you put your hands down and chin up that I'll tell you stop doing that. But no hands down, chin up. Keep doing that. But for whatever reason, I said, stop doing that. And I don't know why I said that. That's why that's a question I have to answer. Like after I retire and see because people were like, oh, did you hold back on anything? I'm like, fuck no. I rocked him in the first round. And if I had deadened him, I was trying to. I was trying to win. But yeah, I still have love for the guy and I respect the guy. He might not feel the same, but he's some he's a guy that he does. And he said, he told me like, like he let me know what to do. He told me, like I said, don't lose focus. And that's why even right now, like I said, for more, I'm like, you know, all this shit is cool. This victory tour, you know, rating this shit around. It's nice. But I want to work. Yeah. Yeah. That's the attitude that makes champions. 100 percent, man. Was it weird being across the cage from him, knowing him like. Only one more one moment. There was one moment and it was in the third round and he went to the he's like, come on, puts his back against the fence is what he did to Bisping. And he front kicked him in the face. Like, come on, come on. It's OK. And then I kind of sat there and at one point I was just stood there. I was like, I'm going to wait two. And it was maybe like seven seconds. But there's a split second in there that I was just like, holy shit. I'm fighting Anderson Silva. Now, I'm like, fuck up. This is my time. And I'm back and I was like, nice. Right here. Then he came to the center of the cage and we kept it going. But look at right there. This right here is going to live forever. God damn that picture. Look at that picture. After I'm done fighting with what I'm going to do in this game. Oh, my God. It's for moments like this. Fuck the belt. It's iconic moments that you know, like Ali over Sonny Liston. Yeah. Yeah. Pictures like that at home framed signed by Muhammad Ali. Wow. Yeah. See shit like that. I'll sign this for someone sometime and then it's going to be framed. Honestly, it's so beautiful, man. And this is Rock Lee. Even something like this, some synchronicities that happened. So this is from this anime. The first fight I watched in this can Google this. Pull it up, Jamie. What is it? Rock Lee versus Gaara. G.A.A.R.A. This is episode 46 of Naruto. And it was the first fight I ever watched that got me into the series. What is this anime series Naruto? I've only seen it online. It takes too long. It's a 720 episode fucking. Yeah. 720 episodes. Yeah. So this bit right here, he takes the weight off. He takes the weight off or you can watch the highlights. And then literally there's some heavy ass weights, but he fucks up Gaara. But I did the stance Rock Lee normally does. I did the stance that he normally does in the Wayans. And Anderson stood there like Gaara. But he probably doesn't even know what that is. Well, he just stood there like this and shit like that. It's a taiju to fight. It's just like when life imitates art without even trying. You know what I mean? Yeah. I edited it. I got some guys, you know, shout out to Caught Craft and Black Green FX. They edited it for me to make it look the same as this. But literally, yeah, shit like this jazzes me up, man. I'm geeking out right now. Fucking nerd. Shout out to Jon Jones. Did he call you nerd? Yeah, I know. Oh, my feelings.