On Saturday, in the main event of UFC 287 in Miami, former middleweight champion Israel Adesanya gave it another go against Alex Pereira. And he finally earned a win against his biggest nemesis.
Heading into the fight, Adesanya was 0-3 against Pereira, having been knocked out in the last two. The most recent finish came on Nov. 12 in New York when Pereira, trailing three rounds to one on all three scorecards, rallied to knock Adesanya out in the fifth round at UFC 281 to win the middleweight title. Pereira also was 2-0 against Adesanya in kickboxing, winning the second of the two bouts by third-round KO.
But after losing his UFC belt to Pereira in devastating fashion, Adesanya insisted upon a rematch, and got it. Some of his peers thought it wasn’t the best decision to go straight into another fight with Pereira. That school of thought goes that Adesanya should have taken a couple of fights to regain his confidence and work on new strategies he needs to defeat Pereira.
That, though, is not how Israel Adesanya operates. He wanted the rematch and wanted it as soon as possible. After knocking out Pereira in the second round on Saturday, Adesanya’s urgency clearly paid off and he’s once again the middleweight champion.
