Former two-time UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya has entered a guilty plea in a newly surfaced drunk driving incident at home in New Zealand — which occurred just weeks out from UFC 293.
According to the NZ Herald, Adesanya, 34, plead guilty on Sept. 24 at the Auckland District Court to a charge of drink driving (the equivalent of drunk driving, or DUI) after being stopped in Auckland Central on August 19, 2023.
An evidentiary blood test taken at the scene showed the fighter with 87 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. The legal limit in New Zealand is 50 milligrams.
Less than a month later, Adesanya would go on to lose his middleweight championship to Sean Strickland in one of the biggest upsets in UFC history.
“I want to apologize to the community, my family and my team for the decision I made to get behind the wheel after drinking at a dinner,” Adesanya said in a statement provided to multiple media outlets. “I was pulled over and gave an evidentiary blood test – the reading was 87 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood. I am disappointed with my decision to drive, it was wrong. I know that people might follow me and I want them to know I do not think this behavior is acceptable.”
Per the Herald, Adesanya’s lawyer, Karl Trotter, requested that no conviction be entered, which was granted by the judge. He will be seeking a discharge without conviction. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for January 10, 2024.
The maximum penalty for a drink driving charge in New Zealand is imprisonment of three months or a fine of $4500. It’s unlikely that Adesanya gets anywhere close to that, given his overall lack of a criminal record, however. “The Last Stylebender” has mostly stayed out of trouble with the law, aside from being briefly detained in New York last year after being caught with a set of brass knuckles at JFK International Airport.
That case was dropped this past December on the condition that Adesanya stay out of trouble for six months.
Israel Adesanya does not currently have a fight scheduled, though both his team and UFC President and CEO Dana White have appeared open to a rematch with Strickland.
