Israel Adesanya's Net Worth in 2021 continues to rise due to his production in the sport.
He is set to face off against Jan Błachowicz in the main event of UFC 259 on March 6. Adesanya has been one of the most dominant and exciting fighters in the UFC. Before making the jump to MMA, Adesanya was a professional kickboxer. The Last Stylebender has a diverse array of strikes and has a larger-than-life personality making him MMA's top draws.
With an impressive 20 wins and no losses in his professional MMA career, his bank account has also been putting up solid numbers.
Israel Adesanya's Net Worth In 2021: $2,000,000
Israel Adesanya's Net Worth in 2021 is estimated at $2,000,000. Adesanya made his UFC debut in 2018, where he earned $153,000 for his TKO finish of Rob Wilkinson. $50,000 of this amount was a Performance of the Night bonus. The fight before his major payday was a sort of a passing of the torch moment with the legendary but far from his peak Anderson Silva. The New Zealander has drawn comparisons to Silva for his striking prowess and strong showings in the Middleweight Division. Adesanya had a payout of $178,000, which had a similar Performance of the Night bonus.
On April 13, 2019, Adesanya won the interim UFC Middleweight Championship versus Kelvin Gastelum and got $430,000 and you guessed it a Performance of the Night bonus and it included a $30,000 fight week incentive. Robert Whittaker was his next victim when he knocked him out and with it, Adesanya was paid a total of $490,000, with a Performance of the Night bonus and a larger fight week incentive of $40,000. This showing unified the UFC Middleweight Championship.
His first title defense was against Yoel Romero and he made $540,000 with the same fight week incentive as his last fight. The match went the full five rounds. Surprisingly, there was no Performance of the Night bonus for Adesanya. There was a lot of hype surrounding his last fight against the Brazilian Paulo Costa, who he stopped in the second round. Adesanya made bank to the tune of $690,000, which had a Performance of the Night bonus and another $40,000 fight week incentive pay.
Currently, Adesanya has an endorsement deal with Australia-based MMA gear and training equipment company, Engage. Last September, he made history as the first mixed martial artist to sign a deal with sports apparel and shoe giant, Puma. In this regard, he has a parallelism with former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Jon Jones. Jones was the first MMA fighter to close a sponsorship deal with Nike.
Adesanya's background makes him an interesting part of the UFC expanding its reach globally. He was born in Nigeria, before moving to New Zealand, so this should help capture the African and Oceania markets. He is a brash trash-talker that reminds you of American, boxing greats like Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Before his fight with Costa, Adesanya called him out in a post-fight interview.
“You know who's next. I got this overinflated balloon animal.” Adesanya said. “This…Ricky Martin wannabe. This Borrachinha [Costa's nickname, which means something like the little eraser in Portuguese].”
If MMA content is somehow consumed by anime fans, well, Adesanya has that covered too. Naruto, an anime about ninjas is a favorite of the UFC Middleweight Champion. In an interview with ESPN, he talks about how his love for anime and cartoons.
“I wanted to be [an] animator when I was growing up, I still will, I will have my own production company after fighting, and I will hire people who will actually bring my vision to life,” Adesanya remarked. “But yeah, that was one of my things that I wanted to do was to be an animator and work for someone like Widder Productions or Disney. …that's what I love about anime, the fight scenes in certain anime; it's such fluid animation, really really crisp. It jazzes me up.”
Perhaps, this can translate to an increased viewership in Japan, where MMA has a long and proud tradition? In the past, Japan had the ow defunct Pride FC, which was an MMA promotion company, where pillars of the sport, such as Wanderlei Silva, Fedor Emelianenko, and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović would duke it out.
Should Adesanya defeat Błachowicz in their contest, the former will become one of only five individuals to hold two UFC championships at the same time. The others are Conor McGregor (Featherweight and Lightweight), Daniel Cormier (Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight), Amanda Nunes (Bantamweight and Featherweight), and Henry Cejudo (Flyweight and Bantamweight). This is the first title defense of Błachowicz and should make for an exciting fight.
Adesanya stands at 6'3 with a rather slight build so the possibility of being a three-division champion is far-fetched, but you never know.
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