Israel Adesanya is in a slump, but don’t tell him that.

Despite a knockout loss to Nassourdine Imavov at UFC Saudi Arabia that extended his current losing streak to three and dropped him to 1-4 in his past five fights, Adesanya has few regrets about his latest outing. The main event bout ended in the second round when Imavov caught “The Last Stylebender” with a series of precision punches that forced a stoppage.

What’s next for the two-time middleweight champion is unclear, but Adesanya was pleased with his preparation for Imavov and he’s feeling positive about fighting again.

“Awesome,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel when asked how he felt about his performance. “I wouldn’t change a thing about this camp. I felt great. Next fight’s going to be even better.

“I’m going to chase the red again, do everything I did, sacrifice, because my flatmate, one of my best friends, he had a baby, moved out to start his family. I was alone a lot, but the first four weeks, five weeks, I was a little bit like, ‘Errrrr…’ because I was just used to being alone in the house. But after that, I just became locked in, like samurai, I used that solitude. … I just use the solitude and everything just to fire myself and fuel myself for this. That’s why now that I’ve finished the camp, had the fight, done well, I’m like, I’m just going to enjoy myself. Because I work hard and I play hard.”

Adesanya, known for his elite technical striking, didn’t plan to finish the younger Imavov early; rather, he expected to use Round 1 to feel out the fight and then increase his offensive pace in the latter rounds.

“My plan was that Round 3, or even later in Round 2, then I’ll put the lead on and get him back to the fence because I was trying to push him back to the fence,” Adesanya said. “Just energy and footwork-wise.”

“It was on, my leg kicks, my jab,” he later added. “I started touching him at the end of Round 1. When we’re in there, we can’t lie. Energy don’t lie. So me and him knew, ‘OK, you’re getting tired.’”

Unfortunately for Adesanya, fatigue did not appear to be an issue for Imavov, who found an opening to land a hard right hand that was the beginning of the end for Adesanya. Imavov followed with more punches on the money, forcing referee Marc Goddard to step in for the stoppage.

Adesanya points to a key mistake he made after ending up on the wrong end of an accidental eye poke. Rather than take his time to recover, Adesanya feels like he rushed back to resume the action and, worse, didn’t reset back at an effective range, allowing Imavov to hit him as he switched stances.

“So I knew it was going to be the end of Round 2 or Round 3 I was going to catch him,” Adesanya said. “So for me, I should have taken time and again, I do not make excuses, and I don’t take anything away from him. He got me because I should have reset, but then I was like, ‘OK, cool.’ I was at the wrong distance because when you’re in flow, you’re in flow, and then the eye poke kind of stopped my flow again. ‘OK, cool,’ back on, back on.

“But I should have just been about six inches, eight inches back more and then that way when I switched stances—and again, he was smart enough, ‘Oh he’s here,’ caught me, and that was perfect and it was the left hook on the fence that got me and I was like, ‘Damn.’”