Muhammad Ali was the master of the ‘rope-a-dope,’ spending long stretches of time with his back against the ropes, letting opponents wing wild shots at him until they’d spent every last bit of their energy and were primed for picking off. It’s a dangerous gambit, all the more so in MMA, which both features more potential threats and lacks a referee’s count to test just how hurt a fighter really is.
Perhaps those are odds that will give Israel Adesanya some pause in the future, when deciding to employ such a startegy. The ‘Last Stylebender’ recently showed up on the MMA Hour, following his fifth round TKO loss at the hands of Alex Pereira, to give an account of why he didn’t make it to the final bell.