Daniel Cormier does not think Israel Adesanya should rush into retirement after losing to Joe Pyfer at UFC Seattle. Adesanya was stopped in the second round, extending his losing streak to four, but Cormier’s read on the performance was more measured than the usual instant-retirement noise that follows a former champion after a rough night.
Adesanya’s loss to Pyfer was a major result for the division and we already covered the aftermath in our recap of Joe Pyfer stopping Israel Adesanya in the UFC Seattle main event. What made Cormier’s reaction notable was that he did not frame the defeat as proof that Adesanya has nothing left. Instead, he focused on how the fight looked before it turned.
Cormier said, “People were wondering whether or not, if Adesanya didn’t get the job done tonight, if it would be it.” He then added, “To me it did not sound like he is almost remotely done with his UFC career.” Cormier went even further, saying, “Honestly, the way that he was fighting, I would encourage him to keep going. Because he was fighting really well.”
That is the central point. Cormier is not pretending Adesanya won the fight or that four straight losses should be ignored. He is saying the performance still had signs of a fighter who can compete, and that retirement should not be declared just because the final result looked bad. That argument lands a little cleaner when paired with Adesanya’s own response after the loss, which we covered in our report on Adesanya insisting he is not leaving after UFC Seattle.
Israel Adesanya leaves the octagon in good spirits after his UFC Seattle main event with Joe Pyfer 🙏🏾 pic.twitter.com/psr0G5Ah4E
— FULL SEND MMA (@full_send_mma) March 29, 2026
Cormier believes the fight changed when Adesanya chose the wrong exchange
Cormier also pointed to a specific moment in the fight.
He said, “I will question and I think Izzy will question when he gets back to watching this fight, why he chose the path that he did in Round 2, because he was fighting really well.”
That was his explanation for the result. Not total decline, not a fighter with nothing left, but a costly decision inside a fight that had been competitive.
That fits the broader picture around the event. Before the fight, Adesanya had openly treated this matchup like a chance to answer the doubt around him, which we noted in our earlier piece on why he believed UFC Seattle could bury the doubt. Instead, the fight moved in the opposite direction once Pyfer got the kind of exchange he wanted.
Cormier explained that shift by saying:
“The moment Adesanya engaged him in the type of fight he likes, a brawl where you stand in front of your opponent and you throw punches and you go punch-for-punch, he recognized his power is greater than almost everyone in this division.”
That assessment also gives Pyfer proper credit. The win did not come against a no-name stepping stone. It came against a former champion in a main event, and it followed the kind of rise we were already tracking when Adesanya vs. Pyfer was first booked for Seattle and later when both men made weight in our UFC Seattle weigh-in coverage.
Four straight losses will always drag retirement talk into the room, especially with a former champion who has already talked publicly about the late stages of his career. We covered that side of the story before in our report on Adesanya saying he can see the finish line of his fighting career. Even with that backdrop, Cormier’s point was straightforward. One difficult stretch, even a damaging one, does not automatically mean the career is over.
