By halfway through the second round, the crowd was booing. In the third, they were audibly restless, and footage posted on Twitter shows fans making their way to the exit before the end of the fourth.

At UFC 276 it became undeniable: the UFC has an Israel Adesanya problem.

Pitched as the heir apparent to the middleweight division after beating the former champion Anderson Silva at UFC 234 in February 2019, Adesanya went on to capture the interim then full championship by the end of that year and has since gone on to defend the belt five times.

By this point in his reign, Silva had finished Nate Marquardt, Rich Franklin (for a second time), Pride FC legend Dan Henderson and Patrick Cote, then went the distance against Thales Leites, who spent most of the fight lying on his back, trying to pull guard while Silva taunted him and tried to get the referee to stand him up. Along the way, he also moved up to light heavyweight and knocked out James Irvin in 61 seconds and beat Travis Lutter in a non-title match when the challenger failed to make weight.

For Izzy, it's been significantly less impressive. The only finish came against Paulo Costa, who later admitted he was hungover, having drunk wine the night before to try and settle his nerves. In his first title defense, Adesanya was embarrassed by the stop-and-go tactics of Yoel Romero and was looked of getting hit. He nullified Marvin Vettori's wrestling again in their rematch but somehow did less damage across five rounds than in their original three round bout. His decision win in the rematch with Robert Whittaker was razor close, and then he faced Jared Cannonier this weekend at UFC 276.

Along the way, Adesanya also moved up to light heavyweight to challenge then-champion Jan Blachowicz in a bout that was intended to set up a dream match against Jon Jones – only Izzy lost comprehensively and has since mooted the idea of moving to 205lbs permanently.

And yet the UFC still gives Adesanya carte blanche to create his Last Stylebender persona and this is what's drawing the ire of the fans.

In the build-up to this event, Adesanya was in a hype video where he said he didn't care about wins or title defenses, he simply wanted to make iconic moments and experiment with different techniques against his opponents. Before the main event, he came to the Octagon mimicking the entrance of WWE superstar The Undertaker: to a funeral dirge. He walked slowly wearing the wide brimmed hat and carrying an urn with "Jared" written on the front.

Then the bell rang and Adesanya spent 25 minutes jabbing at Cannonier before easily bobbing and weaving out of the way. At 38 and having fought at heavyweight and light-heavyweight before settling at middleweight, Cannonier lacked the speed to keep up with the champion and so was a lot more reliant on his strength, but that meant any time he tagged Izzy with a jab, he would immediately move to follow up with a right hand and find himself hitting fresh air. 

In the third frame, Cannonier began establishing a clinch game and, according to UFCstats.com, established 4:14 of control time by the end of the fight, all primarily against the fence. However, the lanky, bendy 193cm Adesanya repeatedly angled himself against the cage wall to make sure he couldn't be taken down by the shorter man and so came out of these encounters largely unscathed.

After the fight, and to a chorus of boos from those still in the T-Mobile Arena, Bruce Buffer announced Israel Adesanya had won by unanimous decision (46-49, 46-49, 45-50). When interviewed by Joe Rogan, Izzy said he had an off night and Cannonier had gameplanned very effectively to ensure he didn't take damage.

But on a night where his kickboxing rival Alex Pereira eliminated Sean Strickland's map with a left hook from hell to get a highlight reel knockout win, and his City Kickboxing teammate Alexander Volkanovski put on a Hall of Fame performance against Max Holloway, Adesanya simply wasn't impressive enough, and it's starting to look like he never will be.

(Cover: Israel Adesanya leaves the Octagon with his UFC middleweight championship belt following his victory over Jared Cannonier in the main event of UFC 276 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., July 3, 2022. /Zuffa]