LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - JULY 02: Alex Pereira of Brazil looks on before his middleweight bout against Sean Strickland during UFC 276 at T-Mobile Arena on July 02, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
Alex Pereira looks huge ahead of fight against UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya
Following the signing of Brazilian kickboxer Alex Pereira to the UFC, the narrative for a fight between him and middleweight champion Israel Adesanya seemed to be writing itself. The former number. 1 ranked kickboxer in the middleweight and light heavyweight division, Pereira’s style is the kryptonite to Adesanya’s unprecedented reign. If experts are to be believed, Pereira poses the biggest threat to Adesanya, having defeated him twice under kickboxing rules in the past.
The Brazilian faced his biggest test so far in MMA against Sean Strickland and passed with flying colors. While Strickland decided to keep the fight in boxing range worried by Poatan’s kicks, the Brazilian landed a vicious left hook faking a level change. With this victory he is well in the conversation to fight Adesanya for the title.
Pereira was seen training alongside UFC light heavyweight contender Dominick Reyes while in preparation for the camp. ‘Poatan’ looks huge, seemingly bigger than Reyes, who fights in a category 20 lbs. heavier than him. This has opened up talks of a move to light heavyweight sometime in the future.
He has been shutting down Adesanya’s teams narrative ahead of their fight at UFC 281 calling it delusional.
Speaking about Adesanya’s analogy of the fight on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Pereira said, “Well, he’s kind of lying to himself, so he can boost his motivation. You watch the fight. Yeah, he had his good and bad moments. But we fought under the kickboxing rules, I knocked him out.”
He added, “So, it’s the same like Glover, for example. He was winning his last fight, right? Or every round, in my opinion. But he lost the fight. Now, he’s gonna have an opportunity to prove that he’s better than the other guy. I knocked him [Adesanya] out, right? I won that fight. So now, he’s gonna have a third opportunity to try to prove that he’s better than me.”
“Poatan” defeated Adesanya twice in kickboxing, winning a 2016 decision in China, and landed a left hook for a vicious, memorable knockout in their rematch, the following year in Brazil. Currently, with just one fight old in the UFC, Adesanya has dismissed talks of the fight in the near future, labelling it as ‘ a bit premature’. Adesanya even said in the past that his loss came because he got too comfortable in the boxing range, and he is a much more transformed fighter.
Israel Adesanya has been reigning supreme in the UFC middleweight division. He has not only built a credible body of work inside the octagon, but also emerged as one of the biggest superstars in the game right now, and the second-highest-paid fighter in the UFC. With a visible lack of viable options, he is most likely to square up against Jared Cannonier, in the quest for his fifth title defense.
Brazilian kickboxing phenom, Alex Pereira encountered Adesanya twice in the kickboxing terrain and emerged victorious twice. Pereira’s first encounter with Adesanya came in April 2016 at Glory of Heroes 1. ‘Poatan’ outperformed Adesanya to earn a unanimous decision victory after three rounds.
A year later, the competitors met again – at Glory of Heroes 15. The rematch proved to be a more decisive win for Pereira. After some initial success inside boxing range for Adesanya, the ‘Stylebender’ fearlessly stepped inside Pereira’s range continually. Pereria landed a perfectly calculated left hook, as soon as Adesanya moved inside range after landing the left high-kick, which knocked him out cold.
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