While fans might not have been fully behind Israel Adesanya’s second performance in the Octagon, that didn’t stop him from getting big ideas about his future. At the UFC’s recent event in Atlantic City, Adesanya had multiple run-ins with a former champion and made it clear that he is on his list.

When I was at UFC Atlantic City, we sat close to Chris Weidman and I told him multiple times, around the hotel ‘I appreciate what you’ve done… when you broke Anderson Silva’s leg I cried, but I wanna fight you, said Adesanya the Top Turtle MMA Podcast.

But in the age of vulgar callouts and throwing dollies through windows, Adesanya made it clear that this was coming from a place of competition, anger, or showmanship.

This is no internet s***, no f***ing Twitter fingers, as a man with respect, I wanna test myself and I think he is still one of the best, said Adesanya. Definitely, I look forward to fighting him. So that’s where my mind is at.

His mind might be better served with the task at hand. At July’s Ultimate Fighter Finale card, he faces middleweight stalwart, Brad Tavares. However, he’s got both Weidman and a couple other ranked middleweights on his radar.

I’m looking at everyone in that division,” he said. “I already know who I want next. I wanna fight the winner of Uriah Hall and the Brazilian kid [Paulo Costa].

With people turning down fights left and right these days, it doesn’t appear we’ll ever have to worry about that with this prospect.

“This is a copycat league; we all take and learn from everyone. … I’ve got some things that I really know and people haven’t seen yet.

All those names… Conor McGregor, Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, they are people I’ve looked up to coming up in this game; seeing what they did and admiring it. It’s never a malicious, ‘aw don’t call me them’ because I looked up to those guys coming up. I still remember skipping work to watch some of their pay-per-views. I need people to recognize who I am and they will soon.

Man, the rankings don’t mean shit to me to be honest; I think they’re silly. I want to see the person who is in charge of the rankings so I can decide if it’s someone who I value their opinion. Rankings are just opinions and people can stick their opinions where the sun don’t shine,