After trying four times, Israel Adesanya was finally successful.
Adesanya had lost to his opponent Alex Pereira 3 times in the past, and it seemed like he was not able to win against him. He felt like he was in a movie and needed revenge for his defeat. Luckily, Adesanya finally got his victory at UFC 287 with two big right punches, which made Pereira lose terribly.
At 4:21 in the second round of the fight, Adesanya became a two-time UFC middleweight champion! This is an amazing achievement, as it is one of the biggest and most important wins of his career. After the match, Adesanya said “Revenge tastes sweet, I have a sweet tooth and this victory was very sweet”. He also acknowledged that Alex may have lost that night but he will still always be remembered as a great champion.
I said that now it’s me, who is the hunter instead of being the one getting hunted. When I got beaten by him, it made me a better fighter and changed me as a person. During that training camp, I worked really hard and put my all into the last workout session. Since 2017, I was given lots of encouragement with that final blow from above.
There was a lot of familiarity between Pereira and Adesanya as they had interacted in the past fights. Both wanted to be in control, so Pereira attempted to use calf kicks while Adesanya threw some body shots.
As the second round began, Pereira hit Adesanya with really hard punches, reminding him of their fight before. But Adesanya wasn’t scared and he defended himself then threw some powerful punches of his own back at Pereira. He stayed very calm and was waiting for the right time to use his best strikes on Pereira.
Pereira was able to land a kick on Adesanya, making him wobble. Seeing an opportunity, Pereira began to strike with lots of shots and at one point even tried using his knee against Adesanya. But none of the strikes worked and they allowed Adesanya to fight back.
Adesanya threw two punches; the first punch shook Pereira and the second one knocked him to the ground. Adesanya then punched again, but referee Dan Miragliotta jumped in to stop him from doing any further damage.
Adesanya was really happy when he went over to shake Pereira’s hand. Then, the UFC title was put around his waist again. This win helped Adesanya become one of the greatest middleweights ever! There’s a chance they’ll fight each other in the future, but right now he should feel proud and enjoy this moment.
He deserved it!
