David Goggins explains what sets apart Israel Adesanya in the UFC

Israel Adesanya isn’t quite sitting at the top of the UFC middleweight division anymore, but what he’s done in the sport still echoes loudly—and for someone like David Goggins, it’s not just the wins that matter. It’s how he got them. After Adesanya’s huge comeback win over Alex Pereira at UFC 287, Goggins, a man who’s built his life around toughness and mental grit, explained what he sees in Adesanya that separates him from every other fighter in the game. And it’s not just about the knockout.

Israel Adesanya’s rivalry with Alex Pereira is the kind of story you almost can’t script. Three losses—two in kickboxing, one in the UFC—and then, out of nowhere, a thunderous knockout that turned the tide. It was more than just a win; it was Adesanya reclaiming his narrative. And David Goggins noticed something not everyone did.
“No one, no one that I’ve ever seen—the way you celebrate, you celebrate in that moment,” Goggins told Adesanya during a conversation on the FREESTYLEBENDER YouTube channel.
“You’re not like, ‘Oh, I won,’ and then you come back and do it. [No], you already visualized what the f*** you were gonna do because when you beat him, it happened so fast with you pulling for those arrows… That s*** was sick.”

Turns out, Adesanya did visualize it—down to the bow-and-arrow celebration he pulled off in the Octagon. He’d rehearsed it in the shower, knowing exactly how he wanted that moment to go down.
But what really impressed Goggins wasn’t the celebration—it was the road Adesanya had to walk just to get there. He’d torn his MCL just weeks before the fight. He could’ve pulled out. He didn’t.
“You kept coming after the demon,” Goggins said. “How fast you came back after you lost, that was purposeful.”
And the fight itself wasn’t easy. Pereira was battering Adesanya’s legs again—just like he did the first time. “After the second [leg kick], I was like ‘f***, again?’” Adesanya admitted. But he stuck through it, bounced off the cage, and cracked Pereira with a right hand that dropped him like a stone.
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This is what Goggins is talking about. The knockouts, the belts, the highlights—they’re great. But it’s the mindset, the visualization, the refusal to quit when every reason to do so is staring you in the face—that’s the real win. As Goggins said, “That mindset? That’s the separator.” And for Adesanya, it might be what keeps him in the conversation of all-time greats, even when he’s not holding the belt.