Israel Adesanya faced one of the most challenging moments in his MMA career at the hands of Alex Pereira some years ago. In fact, the moment was so defining for both fighters that even Pereira’s son, Alessandro, took the opportunity to troll Adesanya on it.
Falei antes para não deixar subir no ringue 😂(meu filho Alessandro após eu nocautear o Adesanya). I told them before not to let him in the ring 😂(my son Alessandro after I knocked Adesanya out). pic.twitter.com/xsa8jaySWR
— Alex “Poatan” Pereira (@AlexPereiraUFC) September 2, 2022
Adesanya is clearly trolled by Pereira’s kid as he is getting up from the mat. This was his only recorded KO loss in combat sports. Adesanya will be looking to avenge the loss this weekend at UFC 281 when he goes up against Pereira for the third time in his career.
ALSO READ: “F*ck the Belt” – Israel Adesanya Says Beating Alex Pereira Is Top Goal Ahead of UFC 281
About that Israel Adesanya Loss
Regarding Adesanya’s loss to Pereira, the fighter and his coach, Eugene Bareman of City Kickboxing, spoke about it on a Teddy Atlas podcast. They were speaking about physical and mental toughness as fighters.
Adesanya and his trainer said that he lost the second fight against Pereira because of his first very close decision loss in the previous fight. The loss took a mental toll on Adesanya and this led him to mistakenly rely solely on physical toughness. And this led to him getting KO’ed for moving away from his gameplan.
“There’s only been one time in Israel’s career where he went away from that (mental) toughness. And he decided to go towards the other type of (physical) toughness. And it’s the only fight and the only time he’s been knocked out completely. That was because the fight before that he had a very close decision loss which most people thought he won. And then we faced an opponent that we also, many years before, lost a very close decision to.”
Both Adesanya and Bareman agreed that he was winning against Pereira in the second fight. It was only when Adesanya drifted away from his plan that he got caught with a left hook. Adesanya will be looking avenge his loss this weekend. In case you missed it, here’s the KO again:
