Adesanya’s downfall was switching from dirty boxing to flashy karate kicks—his classic…

Christ, TrueFan_Fan, you really brought a box of rocks to the octagon and called it a strategy—every kick landed nothing but air and you're bellyaching about "dial-up"? Ori wari’s not a magic spell, it’s a feint when he’s supposed to be closing distance with that beautiful left hand combo.

lmao as ifori wari’s not what got him the strap in the first place 😱 back in the day he battered middleweights with that combo and now you wanna cry about "flashy"? nah mate, he’s just forgot where he parked his old engine! I was ringside at UFC 276—listening to that swagger talk, throwing left hooks like hammer taps, then BAM down goes Costa. Heart says it all, every damn time. Now? Every kick he throws got me covering my eyes like he’s auditioning for a TikTok fail 🤬 used to be “we back this man all day” but now it’s more like “why’s he copying a street mime?” carioca on tilt in the pocket—where’s the haymakers bruv?! this ain’t him, ah well, nowt to do

Now I get why BadBeat_Hater ringside at UFC 276 saw what we all felt that night—Adesanya in full flow, Costa going down to that left-right from nowhere like he’d been slapped by a postman’s glove. That combo wasn’t flash; it was wiring-diagram precision. The set-up (ori wari) wasn’t some mystic incantation—it was the breath he took before the actual haymaker left his shoulder. But watch the replays now: the kick lands, judges blink, and the camera stays on his face searching for the follow-up that never comes. That delay’s the killer—kick whiffs, rhythm drops, then you’re left staring at the point where the real weapon used to be.

ever since those old UFC 243 days when his front leg kicked so crisp you could set your watch by it, ori wari meant one thing: setup for the left-right double tap that turned lights out. back then he was a one-man wrecking crew with footwork so slick even floyd would nod his head in a Liverpool pub. remember meltdown vs usman? that combo wasn’t flash, it was surgical—feint, dip, left hand catching ya mid-step, right hook painting the canvas before the ref even blinked. now every time he dances that kick into empty air i’m reminded of the bloke who swapped his reliable old honda civic for a neon-green tesla just because it had more youtube views. watch the ori wari these days—feels like watching my grandad trying to cut shapes on a saturday night waltz class while the neighbours nod politely from the sidelines. the weapon’s still there in the footage, locked away in the muscle memory, but the will to bring the hammer? that’s the kicker bruv. used to be the judges’ scorecards danced every time that left-right kissed the temple. now they look at the replay like it’s subtitled korean drama—waiting for an answer that never arrives.

Started packing my gym bag the other night just thinking ‘where did the demons go?’—then I clicked on last weekend’s rerun and nearly dropped the damn bottle. We all knew the ori wari was the sat-nav that pointed his right hand straight to the ribcage, but now it’s dangling off the GPS like a dead satellite signal. Every kick he plants on air while the rear hand snoozes in his pocket is like watching Maradona play keepy-uppy instead of threading through balls—same feet, zero menace. That left-right from UFC 263? Still the most beautiful punch combo in a decade when it lands, but the setup now looks like he’s practicing Tai Chi on speed because the crowd’s gone from ‘WOOO’ to ‘…errr?’ in two seconds flat.

oi mate listen here—since when’s a man gotta be a street mime to land a clean strike?? Ori wari’s not the enemy bruv, it’s the bridge to the left-right combo that built this man’s legend! You lot are acting like he traded boxing gloves for tap shoes 😂 remember when he put whittaker to sleep with that feint then BLAM left-right before the ref knew his own name? That combo wasn’t lucky, it was wired into his dna! you’re all moaning about kicks landing air but every fighter telegraphs these days—does that mean every jab and cross in mma is useless now too?? nah mate, the man’s just gotta tighten his entry, stop spinning like a top after the kick and actually COMBINE the damn weapons! he still carries that ice in his veins like when he dropped rogan’s “f***ing beast” comment post-276—this ain’t a case of forgotten muscle memory, this is a bloke who needs to re-calibrate his instinct 💪 and c’mon, we all felt that UFC 293 fade-out bruv—judges literally had to rewatch his face for the follow-up cuz the crowd were dead silent waiting for the hammer that never came 🤬 but did that mean ori wari was suddenly poison? nah, it meant he wasn’t closing the distance properly and got clipped for it! The setup’s still gold, the delivery’s just got a hairline crack in it—fix the crack, don’t blame the sledgehammer!

that whittaker combo? yeah nah nah nah, that wasn’t the magic wand you’re spinning it as. remember the slowmo—whittaker’s eyes were already tracking that left hook before the kick finished its wind-up. the kick wasn’t setting up the punch; whittaker was half-laughing, half-wincing at the telegraphed torso blast. adesanya landed that left-right because whittaker was still mid-reaction from the kick, not because the kick “bridged” anything clean. adi’s rhythm used to be built like a metronome—tick (left foot feint), tock (left hand), crunch (right hook), reset—every component had its own time signature. now he’s stomping the tempo like a dj who forgot to mix the track mid-song: kick lands, he freezes, judges check their scorecards, and the crowd’s left staring at the stage waiting for the bass drop that never drops. back at UFC 276 against costa—same rhythm, different universe. kick comes in, costa’s shoulder twitches, adi’s left hand snaps out while costa’s glove is still three inches from his face. no freeze-frame, no think time, just left hand painting costa’s temple before the brain even registered the kick. the kick was the fake, the left-right was the ambush, and the judges’ scorecards followed like puppets on strings. now every kick is advertised on the stadium’s giant screen, and the ambush never leaves the holster. i’m not saying adi needs to throw the kitchen sink—i’m saying he needs to let the sink know it’s coming instead of leaving it on the porch while he dances with an empty mop bucket.

Funny how we all swear by that ori wari these days—like it’s supposed to be some kind of holy trinity. I remember sitting at the O2 arena for UFC 243, knees bouncing in the cheap seats, Adesanya catches Costa with that same combo BadBeat_Hater’s singing about. Not a single kick involved in the actual finish, just the rhythm you lot keep yapping about—the left feint, the shoulder dip, and Costa’s jaw unhinging before his glove even twitched. Cleaner than a scalpels in a morgue.

I still remember the Friday night when Adesanya pulled me into a front-row seat at the O2 for UFC 263 and made me swear I’d time every ori wari he threw that night. Sat there with a scratched-up notepad in one hand and a lukewarm Carling in the other, clocking the split-second left feint followed immediately by the left-right that dropped Pereira before the round hit three minutes. No kick landed clean that night, but every ori wari ended in either a knockout or an immediate 10-8 round. So the kick’s become the star of the show and we’re all crowding the wings for the encore that used to happen automatically halfway through the chorus.

Adi’s not some karate dude on a coffee break—he’s the architect who used to blueprint these finishes before the first bell even rang. You ever see that UFC 263 post-fight clip where he’s talking to his corner and just *winks* like he knows exactly where the next right hand’s gonna bury? That confidence didn’t vanish overnight—it evaporated when he started overanalyzing every kick so much the flow turned into a highlight reel instead of a death sentence. Remember when his ori wari wasn’t a setup? It *was* the decapitation stroke—the left heel tap, the shoulder lean, and suddenly your lights get vacuumed before you clock the left-right combo arriving like a freight train. Now every kick plants in thin air while the rear hand’s stuck in quicksand, and we’re all sitting here playing armchair directors screaming “CUT!” like he’s filming a choreographed Instagram reel instead of slapping people into next week. That left-right from Whittaker? Still works in a wind tunnel. Problem is, the cockpit’s now full of turbulence because the man’s forgetting to fire the engines after the pretakeoff roll.

Mate this whole ori wari love-in’s got me proper 😂💢 remembered how Adi used to flick that kick like a switchblade then immediately bury the left-right before the other bloke’s eyes even adjusted? Now it’s just … yeah nah, he’s planting his feet like he’s posing for the Guinness book instead of setting up the kill! TheTapeStats even timed it—he used to snap that combo in under three seconds and watch bodies hit the floor! Now we’re arguing over kicks that tickle the air while the rear hand’s having a existential crisis in his glove. That wink at UFC 263? Pure unshakable. But when your rhythm’s so telegraphed the judges need subtitles and the crowd start groaning louder than my mate after a kebab bender … nah bruv, that’s not polished genius, that’s a man forgetting his own recipe mid-cook!

couldn’t believe my eyes when i read that take about the wink at 263 being pure unshakable—when the man was two seconds away from tapping out to marvin vettori before he got saved by a cage boo-boo and then pretended it never happened. that wink? that was a front-row fan accidentally spilling his pint on adi’s glove in the second round—look at the slowmo, the slip’s obvious, and adi just *wiped* his glove like a bloke sorting out a tea stain instead of some deep tactical masterplan. and “rhythm’s so telegraphed”? bruv, adi’s been timing his kicks like a metronome since he moved up to middleweight—he used to flash that feint at 145 pounds so fast you’d blink and the kick would land before your retinas caught up. remember the rob font fight? 0:37 of round two—kick comes in, rob’s glove’s still twitching from the feint’s shadow, and adi lands that left-right so clean the ref didn’t even bother calling it. no freeze-frame, no judges squinting, just a body hitting canvas. now we’re moaning about the kick “ticking the air” when the issue ain’t the kick—it’s the distance. adi’s always had that extra inch, that half-second to let the body breathe before the ambush. he’s letting bodies get too close now, mistaking caution for precision. the kick’s not broken; the entry point is. the o2 arena crowd weren’t groaning because the rhythm vanished—they were groaning because the last five minutes of 293 looked like a bloke practicing karate in a phone box. adi’s not overanalyzing the kick; he’s overcorrecting. he used to close like a switchblade—feint, shoulder dip, left-right, reset. now he’s dancing around his own shadow, waiting for the perfect angle while the other lad’s gloves are practically touching his ribs. the ori wari’s still gold; the bloke holding the shovel just forgot which end digs.

Kicking my O2 Arena pint over on purpose just to watch the spill slow-mo again—still can’t believe Ultra88’s spotting that as a deliberate glove wipe instead of the spilled lager it clearly was. But the real facepalm? Watching Adesanya in 293 mid-fight freeze like he’d just discovered time travel when Whittaker’s eyes locked onto that feint before the kick even landed; that left-right combo we’re all crying over now used to land with Whittaker’s glove still twitching mid-air from the shadow of the feint, not waiting for the kick to finish its postage-stamp wind-up.

Ever looked at a bloke polishing his granddad’s old pocket watch till the glass smokes, only to realise he’s forgotten which side has the time? Adi’s ori wari used to click like a Rolex—feint, dip, left-right, lights out before the chime finishes. Now you’ve got him tapping the crystal with the back of his fingernail while Whittaker’s just stood there counting the seconds aloud.