Izuchukwu Okosi
Nigeria’s Israel Adesanya was knocked out in his second kickboxing fight by Alex Pereira despite controlling most of the bout until the finish.
In the early hours of Sunday in Nigeria, in the main event of UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden, history repeated itself as Adesanya who grew up in New Zealand lost his third fight to the same opponent.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelAdesanya nicknamed ‘The Stylebender’ was controlling the fight, hurt Pereira twice and was seemingly on the way to a decision victory.
Then, out of nowhere, the hard-hitting Pereira cracked Adesanya with a combo and the course of UFC history was changed.
The first right hand hurt Adesanya and froze him against the cage. Pereira poured it on and got the finish at 2:01 of the final round.
Adesanya hurt Pereira badly at the end of the first round with a right hand and a left hook, and again in the third with a kick to the midsection while Pereira was down and then a right hand.
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Pereira wobbled a few other times, but managed to survive. However, the first time that Pereira landed big, the show was over.
Pereira won a decision over Adesanya in 2016 in kickboxing and followed it with the KO in 2017. But Saturday’s win made him the UFC champion and ended the reign of one of the great middleweight champions in promotional history.
Adesanya was doing just about everything correctly until the finish. He was frustrating Pereira with his movement and catching him with counters. Pereira is a huge puncher and so the threat was always present, which Adesanya recognised.
At one point late in the fourth, Adesanya slipped and somersaulted backward and then got on his bike to avoid being caught.
He was mostly controlling the fifth until he got caught. It was his first loss at middleweight in the UFC, though he lost a decision to Jan Blachowicz in a bid for the light heavyweight title.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
