Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira have known each other for a long time now. Although not as friends, they still know how the other person fights inside out. So when Poatan watched the Adesanya vs. Du Plessis fight, he felt like the Kiwi was coming off an injury because he was not throwing his leg kicks that much, much to Adesanya’s surprise.
‘Poatan’ felt as though the fight favored the champion only because ‘Izzy’ wasn’t throwing the inside leg kick as much.
In response to Pereira’s observations, Adesanya spoke out about how weird it was that the pair knew each other so well, especially the way they fought.
“It’s weird how this guy knows me…it’s like we’ve spent hours studying each other’s moves and fought multiple times or sumn’. I mean that.”
It’s weird how this guy knows me…it’s like we’ve spent hours studying eachother’s moves and fought multiple times or sumn’. I mean that. https://t.co/Up7U8DyT2Q
— Israel Adesanya (@stylebender) August 25, 2024
Well, given that they have been rivals since their Glory Kickboxing days and have fought each other four times now, it shouldn’t be as surprising. Because that’s 4 camps that these guys have spent trying to study each other for the big day of the fight,
Out of those four fights, ‘Poatan’ won three and Adesanya has won only once. In fact, it was his second win in a kickboxing match going viral and Izzy calling him a drunk that drove him to the UFC and take it by storm.
Their rivalry still lives on to this day and fans are waiting for them to step into the octagon against each other again.
And as it turns out, this may be a possibility with the UFC light heavyweight champ thinking of returning to the middleweight division.
Poatan wants DDP’s middleweight title
Alex Pereira may be on a hunt to avenge Israel Adesanya after the New Zealand native lost to the champ recently at UFC 305.
Following that fight, Pereira posted on Instagram that he wanted to return to the middleweight division. In a recent video, he spoke about it saying,
“When I went up in weight I said I could do this again, go down to middleweight but I need some time to recover. I think I was able to recover.I think if I go down one more time I’ll do well.”
Alex Pereira would be willing to go back to the middleweight division to fight Dricus:
“When I went up in weight I said I could do this again, go down to middleweight but I need some time to recover. I think I was able to recover.I think if I go down one more time I’ll do well. pic.twitter.com/dsHLXD88F7
— FEDZ_MMA (@Fedzmma) August 24, 2024
The Brazilian believes he can go back down to the middleweight division again and do well. He will have to go through a serious weight cut as he looks natural at light heavyweight but it seems he’s fine with that as long as he is on the path to Dricus du Plessis’ middleweight title.
