Israel Adesanya, UFC Hall of Famer.

On Saturday night during the UFC 312 main card in Sydney, Australia it was confirmed that the April 2019 classic, back-and-forth bout between Adesanya and Kelvin Gastelum has been chosen as the latest fight to be inducted into the UFC’s Hall of Fame — alongside other classics like Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar, Matt Hughes vs. Frank Trigg II and the most recent entrant, Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen.

But while Adesanya says he still has feats left to achieve in the cage, he told The Mac Life in Sydney of the honour he fells in being inducted alongside Gastelum.

“Very grateful,” he said. “I knew that was a special fight, a special moment in combat sports history. I even said on the camera when they had the cameras on me in the stadium, I said, ‘Hey Kelvin, that was us’ because it takes two to tango. That man can salsa.

‘That was the realest moment I think I’ve ever had in the cage,” Adesanya added of his statement ahead of the fifth round that he was prepared to die in there. “I meant every single word of it and I returned the favour by trying to kill him. And he’s a hard man to kill. In the moment I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t scared of death. I just thought, ‘if this is how I go out, this is how I go out — but I’m going to die trying.'”

“I tried, and I did. It’s not just me, it was me and him in there. What an opponent.”