Israel Adesanya, Yoel Romero (©UFC)

Israel “The Last Stylebender” Adesanya, 30, of Auckland, New Zealand is still the reigning champion of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the middleweight division. He successfully defended his title at “UFC 248.”

Featuring 11 MMA matches, including two title bouts, the UFC held “UFC 248” at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. In the main event of the evening, Adesanya defended his belt from Yoel “Soldier of God” Romero, 42, of Pinar del Rio, Cuba and Miami, Florida, USA.

Dan Miragliotta served as the referee. After five five-minute rounds, the title bout was left in the hands of the judges who scored it 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46.

In the end, Miragliotta raised the hand of Adesanya. The Nigerian-Kiwi defending champion was declared the winner via unanimous decision, which means he is still an undefeated MMA fighter.

Losing to Adesanya at “UFC 248” downgraded the professional MMA record of Romero to 13 wins and 5 losses. It was the Cuban-American MMA fighter’s fourth loss in the UFC.

On the other hand, Adesanya now has 19 wins and 0 loss. “UFC 248” marked his first title defense as the UFC Middleweight Champion and his eighth consecutive win in the UFC.

Born in Lagos, Nigeria on July 22, 1989, Adesanya moved to Ghana with his family in October 2001. In August 2012, they moved to New Zealand.

Including Cuba, New Zealand and the U.S., a total of 12 countries were represented at “UFC 248.” The others were Argentina, Brazil, China, Denmark, Georgia, Mexico, Mongolia, Poland and Russia.

Romero solely represented Cuba and he was one of the 10 representatives of the U.S. Adesanya was the only representative of New Zealand.

The “UFC 248” victory gave Adesanya the third longest win streak in the promotion tied with Romero and Robert “The Reaper” Whittaker, 29, of Australia. The longest was 13 consecutive wins by Anderson “The Spider” Silva, 44, of Brazil followed by that of Chris Weidman, 35, of Baldwin, New York, USA with nine-bout winning streak.

Competing professionally since 2012, Adesanya made his successful UFC debut in 2018 by knocking out Rob “Razor” Wilkinson, 28, of Australia. Also in 2018, the undefeated Nigerian-Kiwi MMA fighter defeated Marvin “The Italian Dream” Vettori, 26, of Italy, Brad Tavares, 32, of Kailua, Hawaii, USA and Derek Brunson, 36, of Wilmington, North Carolina, USA.

In 2019, Adesanya defeated Silva, Whittaker and Kelvin Gastelum, 38, of Yuma, Arizona, USA. Meanwhile, watch the complete “UFC 248” post-fight press conference here: