Last night at UFC 287, Israel Adesanya produced one of the best performances of his career. ‘The Last Stylebender’ knocked out his heated rival Alex Pereira to regain the UFC middleweight title he lost last November.
Israel Adesanya defeated Alex Pereira via second-round knockout, dimming his lights despite being largely on the defensive at the time. In real time, the punches landed by ‘The Last Stylebender’ might have been hard to spot, aside from the right hand that dropped Pereira to the ground.
A super slow motion replay posted to Twitter revealed that Adesanya caught ‘Poatan’ with four clean shots before finishing him off with a couple more punches to the ground.
Twitter user @TheArtOfWar6 stated: “Damn that 1-2 was clean.” Judging by the clip, he’s not wrong.
The clip shows Adesanya absorbing a left hand from Pereira before returning fire with a short left hand to the jaw and then a beautiful right hook straight to the temple. From there, Adesanya lands another right hook to the temple, and as ‘Poatan’ appears to be going down, she follows with a short left hook.
Unsurprisingly, the slow-motion clip has gotten a lot of attention from other Twitter users, with one commenting that “Izzy has the best counters in the game.”
However, perhaps the best reaction to Adesanya’s big win came from his teammate Alexander Volkanovski. The reigning UFC featherweight champion was seen celebrating backstage, apparently ecstatic about his friend and training partner.
What happened after the fight between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira at UFC 287?
Although the rivalry between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira is intense and heated, a clip taken backstage after their fight at UFC 287 suggests that the two middleweights have a great deal of respect for each other.
The clip shows Adesanya shaking Pereira’s hand before the two men embrace in a show of mutual admiration, once again demonstrating the amount of class that goes into the highest level of MMA.
Before their fight last night, Adesanya and Pereira had faced each other three times, with ‘Poatán’ winning all three bouts. Two of his victories ended by knockout, including his UFC middleweight title win last November.
Many fans have already suggested that a fifth fight between the two should be put together, but Dana White has hinted that a move to 205 pounds could be in the future for Pereira.