By Daily Sports Nigeria on January 9, 2024

Despite being ready for anything every time they step inside the octagon across from each other, Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira never took their animosity outside of competition. If you see them talk trash in the pre-fight and fight in the octagon, however, you’d swear they truly hate each other’s guts.

Pereira beat Adesanya twice in kickboxing, knocking him out in the second bout. ‘The Last Stylebender’ shortly transitioned into MMA and became the UFC middleweight champion. ‘Poatan’ shortly followed and challenged the African-Kiwi champion for the belt, once again stopping him with strikes.

In the fourth and final fight of their rivalry, Adesanya avenged his three straight losses by flatlining his Brazilian rival with strikes. While the two stand at 3-1 in favour of Pereira, Adesanya may have had the last laugh.

‘Poatan’ moved up to 205 pounds and won the title there, seemingly ending the rivalry. Adesanya himself confirmed that the rivalry is behind him now and congratulated Pereira for his successes at light-heavyweight.

Pereira appreciates this, telling Ariel Helwani in an interview, “I think it was a really nice thing that he did. I have a lot of respect for the fact that the rivalry stayed in the ring. You know what I mean? We’re waving that off. And I like the way that he said that [he’s] cheering for me and saying that he’s the only guy that ever beat me. In his place, I would have done the same. I want to be the only guy that beats somebody so I think it was very nice and I like that a lot.”

Source Punch Ng

Posted January 9, 2025

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