If you plan on winning a UFC title, you better be something special. Thousands of men and women have stepped into the Octagon over the UFC’s 28-year history, and only a small fraction have ever held the gold. To reach the mountaintop, you need to have at least one or two things that you are undeniably one of the very best in the world at – jacks of all trades, masters of none need not apply.

Go through the list of all-time UFC champions and at least one or two special traits will come to mind for almost everyone you see. Sometimes, they have enormous knockout power (Francis Ngannou). Sometimes, they’re indomitable wrestlers (Khabib Nurmagomedov). Sometimes, they have unparalleled fight IQ and an incredible instinct for how to craft a winning fight (Alexander Volkanovski). Sometimes, they have seemingly everything (Georges St-Pierre).

That statement is doubly true if you’re challenging a champion like Israel Adesanya. The world middleweight champion has never been beaten at his home weight class, and it’s because he has at least a few of these world-class traits: one of the longest fighters in the UFC regardless of division, Adesanya has a master-level understanding of angles, ringcraft and distance, which he uses to make his opponents look like they’re swinging in slow motion. He also uses it to shut his opponents down and launch devastating counter-attacks. He’s one of the greatest strikers the sport has ever seen.

None of this is to denigrate Marvin Vettori, Adesanya’s opponent last Saturday night. Vettori is a fine mixed martial artist, physically strong, tough, a good boxer and a good wrestler. He just isn’t special. He has solid boxing, but his power or technique isn’t such that Adesanya had to respect it. He can take opponents down, but not with the explosiveness that Adesanya was really in danger. Vettori’s combination of talents are enough to beat many of the best middleweights in the world, but not someone special.

Just like in their first fight in 2018, when both were early in their rises up the UFC middleweight rankings, Vettori seemed almost completely incapable of landing anything clean on Adesanya. And while his pressure got Adesanya backed up to the cage much more than the champion would have liked, Vettori wasn’t able to consistently take Adesanya down. It felt like Vettori’s one shot at eking out a decision was to follow the script he used to win the third round of their original fight – pin him down against the cage, take him to the ground, keep him there. And when Adesanya proved in the first round that he could get back to his feet on the rare occasions Vettori could get him to the mat, you could see the Italian’s chances evaporate in real-time.

Adesanya made Vettori miss for 25 straight minutes, cracking him with slick slip-and-rip counters and beating him with low kicks that turned Vettori’s lead leg a completely different color from the rest of his body. It was very light work – it felt like they could have fought all night, and Vettori never would have at any point been able to threaten the champion.

Aside from being another dominant defense of his middleweight title, it was a warning to the rest of the class: you better be more special than that if you’re going to make Israel Adesanya sweat. Of course, even that isn’t a guarantee. Paulo Costa certainly seemed to have a few of those world-class traits that separate the wheat from the chaff – a physical marvel, Costa boasts withering knockout power and an unrelenting aggression. Adesanya crushed and humiliated him and made it look easy.

There may only be one man left in the division with the next-level ability to take the title off Adesanya in the near future, and it’s the man he knocked out to win it all two years ago. Robert Whittaker is a striker without incredible knockout power – although he does possess one of the best right high kicks of all time – but what separates him is his unbelievable technical ability and mind for striking.

Whittaker has built himself back up after his crushing defeat to Adesanya in Melbourne, and has looked better and better each time. His latest win, a 50-45 shutout over Kelvin Gastelum, was a complete masterclass. it was one of the best pure stand-up performances you’ll ever see – every single strike set up the next one, his movement and footwork were flawless, and his combinations were beautiful. It felt like we were watching a striker who was just operating on a completely different level from everyone else. Someone special.

But again, there’s no guarantee. Adesanya’s already knocked Whittaker out once. When these two meet again – hopefully later this year – he may do it again. But Robert Whittaker may be the last off-ramp standing in between Israel Adesanya and an Anderson Silva-like title reign at middleweight. There simply isn’t anyone else.