Derek Brunson Says He Had Low-Level Partners While Preparing For Israel Adesanya

Derek Brunson and current middleweight king Israel Adesanya shared the octagon at UFC 230. Their feud has grown more since then.

By that time, Israel Adesanya was the rising star of the UFC, who took the promotion by storm. In their bout, Adesanya earned a first-round TKO victory after landing some huge knees and punches.

Currently, the No. 4 ranked middleweight says that, during the preparation time, he was sparring with low-level partners like amateur fighters or police officers.

“I was training with soccer dads, firemen, police officers, janitors,” Brunson told The MMA Hour.

“Like, that was who my training partners were. One UFC fight, I had a homeless guy I was training with. He used to be like an amateur boxer — a homeless guy. I tried to go find him after my fight and give him money, but I couldn’t find him. Nobody could find him,” he added.

After that, Brunson decided to change the gym and continued training with Sanford MMA.

Since suffering a loss against Adesanya, Brunson earned five victories in a row and is close to his title shot and rematch with the Last Stylebender.

However, to earn the title shot and remain in the hype around him, he needs to defeat Jared Cannonier at UFC 270 on January 22.

Blonde Brunson, as he calls himself, is undefeated.

He defeated new rising stars and moved up to the top contender again. He bested Edmen Shahbazyan, who was undefeated before. He also defeated Kevin Holland, who earned five victories in a row in the previous year and was nominated as the best fighter of the year.

The last time he fought was against English star and former welterweight title challenger Darren Till, and defeated him via submission in the third round.