Israel Adesanya might be in a new phase of his career, but he isn’t expecting very much to change.

Adesanya, 35, returns to the UFC cage this weekend in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where he has been paired with the French (via Dagestani extraction) middleweight Nassourdine Imavov as StyleBender seeks a return to the win column after dropping successive bouts to Sean Strickland and Dricus du Plessis — both of which were for the UFC’s 185-pound title.

But as the veteran in this fight against the 29-year-old Imavov, Adesanya says the manner of his task this weekend is a simple one.

“I feel like the guy, like the old dog. And then there’s the young guys coming up trying to prove themselves, so it’s my job to send them back down and let them know I’m still here,” Adesanya told The Mac Life and other reporters on Wednesday.

“I feel honestly… God forbid if I lose my next ten fights it wouldn’t affect my legacy. I put pressure on myself, don’t get me wrong. If he doesn’t feel the pressure, good for him. But he’ll find out.”

As for what Adesanya is focusing on ahead of the bout, he says that so long as he enters the cage in the correct mindset good things can only happen for him.

“Highlights, performance, being free,” he said of his fight night expectations. “‘Cause I know when I do that it’s always victory.”

“From what I see so far there’s nothing that he brings that I haven’t seen before. I think his best attribute is his speed. But I’ve seen that before. It’s up to him to show me something I haven’t seen before.”