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Former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya was on the receiving end of his rival’s verbal attack.
Since winning the gold, Adesanya proved to be a dominant champion who lapped past his division, beating multiple top contenders more than once. He even attempted to enter the ultra-exclusive ‘champ-champ’ club by moving up a division to face former champion Jan Blachowicz for the light heavyweight title. Although he didn’t succeed in the quest for a second belt, Adesanya remained undefeated at 185 pounds until a familiar foe came along.
‘Stylebender’ is coming off a thrilling loss to reigning middleweight king Alex Pereira in his latest outing at UFC 281 last month. He appeared to be ahead on the judges’ scorecards and looked set to add another title defense under his belt. However, ‘Poatan’ unleashed a flurry of punches in the fifth round to score a standing TKO of ‘Stylebender’ and break his unbeaten run as a 185-pound competitor.
It marked the third time Pereira came out on top of a contest with Adesanya, and the second time he finished him. They previously clashed inside the kickboxing ring on two occasions, with ‘Poatan’ being the victor both times, including a brutal left hook knockout.
Pereira remains the only man to have KO’d or TKO’d the dazzling striker across combat sports competition.
Pereira Slams Adesanya With His Own Words
During the build-up to their title fight, Pereira traded verbal jabs with Adesanya. He took issue with his foe for dismissing their previous matches and kept firing shots at the Nigerian-born Kiwi.
Pereira took to Instagram earlier this week to slam Adesanya using a quote that ‘Stylebender’ originally made for him.
He captioned: “‘At the end of the day, no one knows who he is’ Adesanya.”
There was a lot of anticipation regarding a potential encounter between Pereira and Adesanya before the former two-division Glory kickboxing champion made his way to the UFC.
The quote he referenced appears to be from Adesanya’s comments before their bout when he discredited Pereira’s potential as a potential mixed martial arts world champion.
Adesanya’s Coach Is Confident Things Will Be Different in the Expected Rematch
Adesanya’s head coach Eugene Bareman of City Kickboxing has full faith in his pupil’s abilities. If the expected rematch comes to fruition, he believes things would go down differently.
“We’re quietly confident,” Bareman told Submission Radio (transcribed by MMA Junkie).
“You got to understand, we were winning that fight relatively comfortably. We felt we were taking the rounds. But not comfortable enough – when you’re fighting somebody like that, who’s game plan appears to be, it’s not a guy who builds his game plan around accumulation of damage.
“He’s a guy that builds his game plan around mentally wearing down and trying to land one big shot. And he’s comfortable giving rounds and then not panicking, because he gives away rounds, and it’s part of a bigger picture for him, setting up what he ultimately is looking for. And with a few adjustments, we can make some changes there and build on a lot of positive things that happened in that fight for us.”
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