Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya are having their fight again this weekend. If you’re fancy, it’s been called a ‘tetralogy bout’. Everyone has an idea of what will happen in this fight and its result could change how we see each fighter’s career. So what happens if Adesanya loses his fourth battle with Pereira? How will that affect his legacy?
Four people, Shaun Al-Shatti, Alexander K. Lee, Damon Martin and Jed Meshew discussed the importance of the fight between Pereira and Adesanya plus the biggest stories from UFC 287.
Israel Adesanya’s Career at Risk
Al-Shatti: It means Alex Pereira is going to make jokes about Israel Adesanya in every message section forever.
Adesanya and Pereira have a strange rivalry between them. Adesanya should’ve won their first three fights but Pereira managed to turn the tables during the last few minutes, resulting in Adesanya not winning any of their fights although he has spent 38 minutes fighting with Pereira considering both their sports, and within this time frame it’s very likely that Adesanya had won for around 35 minutes. Now, as they’re about to fight again, Adesanya is at risk of losing all four fights with a 0-3 defeat which could come like a disaster for his career.
It’s really hard.
Adesanya is already seen as one of the top middleweight fighters ever, but if Pereira wins all four fights against him then it won’t look as good on Adesanya’s record. It would mean someone could justifiably boast about beating him during his prime time.
If Israel Adesanya is successful, he will be doing away with all this stuff. But if he fails, Paolo Pereira’s name will be linked to him forever.
Lee: Israel Adesanya isn’t the only UFC fighter who has an enemy.
Daniel Cormier was never able to beat Jon Jones. Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, and Joanna Jedrzejczyk are still considered the best ever in their divisions even though they were beaten by Chris Weidman, Max Holloway, and Rose Namajunas. Chuck Liddell lost to Quinton Jackson in a different fight event and then later saw his rival take away his UFC title from him. Lastly, Matt Hughes strangely only lasted 20 seconds before getting beaten during his two fights with Dennis Hallman before becoming champion.
What we’re trying to say is that even though Alex Pereira managed to beat him, it shouldn’t take away from the amazing fighting career of Adesanya. It will just be remembered as a small detail in his otherwise successful life.
Many famous fighters such as Georges St-Pierre, Randy Couture and Amanda Nunes have earned their reputations by being able to come back after a loss and become the champion again. Adesanya will be looking to do the same when he faces Pereira. When he succeeds, it will prove that nothing has stopped him on his journey of becoming an everlasting middleweight king and having plenty of potential opponents waiting for him in the near future (like Bo Nickal).
If Adesanya loses to Pereira, it won’t be good for his reputation. It would also make it harder for him to become one of the all-time greats. However, overall, the loss wouldn’t mean much.
Israel Adesanya is one of the top two best middleweight fighters in history and only Anderson Silva stands above him. Unfortunately, after his loss at UFC 281, he has no chance of taking over from Anderson as the number one fighter. But don’t worry – because even if Israel loses here, it won’t hurt his legacy too much since he has already made a name for himself. It’s like what happened to Kamaru Usman at UFC 286 – when you’re already famous nobody remembers your losses that easily!
Adesanya’s career is at risk of taking a major turn. When fighters lose one fight, they are more likely to keep losing them; we’ve seen this happen before in MMA. If Adesanya loses to Pereira again, he will have a hard decision to make: stay at 185 lbs or move up to 205 lbs permanentaly. No matter what he decides, if he keeps losing it won’t be good.
MMA is a tough sport to stay in for long. People like Khamzat Chimaev want to fight against Izzy, the current champion. Going up to 205 pounds will also be tough for Izzy since he already had trouble with that size change before. On top of that, his rival, Pereira, might also eventually make his way there and be in the same division as him. If Izzy keeps losing fights, especially by knockout, then it could be troublesome times for him from now on.
Money Talks
If Jorge Masvidal wins his upcoming fight in a spectacular way, then it’s possible Colby Covington might have to fight Belal Muhammad next.
Whether you like it or not, UFC champions are mostly decided based on star power rather than the merits of a fighter’s ability. Covington hasn’t done much to be considered for a title match against Leon Edwards, but he was still awarded the spot as No. 1 contender after being inactive in the ring for over a year. His biggest fight in this period was in court against Masvidal.
Jorge Masvidal is an important fighter for the UFC because he can make money for them, no matter if he is in a title match or another fight. His “three-piece with soda” incident with Leon Edwards was exciting for people to watch and it made Dana White excited about making money from pay-per-view buys.
If Jorge Masvidal wins, it’ll be like all bad things he’s done before (like losing to Covington) haven’t happened. The fight between him and Edwards in London is so interesting that the UFC won’t let it go. But if Gilbert Burns wins, everyone will just laugh!
We should stop thinking of UFC as a traditional sport. It’s more like a sanctioned fight, where winners may earn rewards, making it look sort of like a game. But in the end, it’s just another business activity that provides opportunities for participants – it’s all about money.
Masvidal is not as famous as some other UFC fighters, but he still has a lot of fans. He’s more popular than Covington and they don’t like each other which makes their fight exciting to watch. If Masvidal wins against Burns then the UFC might give him a chance to fight Leon Edwards instead of Covington. Besides, this isn’t the first time the UFC has done this sort of thing to Covington – even when he won an interim belt, they just took it away from him.
So even if Covington won the fight with Masvidal, it doesn’t really matter because this isn’t about who wins or loses. It’s all about business here. So, the best choice in business is to have Edwards face Masvidal in London. Does everyone understand?
Some people support the idea of giving Colby Covington a title shot even though they don’t really like it. That’s because he’s popular with some UFC fans, he did well in his fights against Kamaru Usman, and people are talking about him a lot. A lot of conversations started going on after Dana White said Covington would fight Leon Edwards for the welterweight champion title. Those talks haven’t stopped since.
If the fighter who wins next Saturday’s match is either Burns or Masvidal, they will have an important victory in the past 12 months. A win by Masvidal would be super important because he has been trying to get a title shot for ages now and beating Burns would be even more impressive than winning over Diaz, Askren or Till. Although Masvidal shouldn’t get rewarded for hurting Covington, people might look past that due to his history with Edwards.
Burns might actually be the best fighter out of all these three names. People have been talking about how Covington could almost beat Usman, but we shouldn’t forget that Burns had already hurt Usman during their match back in February 2021, which proves that he’s powerful enough to fight with the top-tier fighters too. The UFC should do something great and make this fight really worth it.
UFC 287
Lee is saying that Raul Rosas Jr. is a very popular fighter and everyone will be focusing on him when the pay-per-view event starts.
We don’t know how far this 18-year-old dude called Rosas can go in Mixed Martial Arts. Many youngsters have been very successful in the past and some others didn’t make it. But, so far, Rosas has done all that is expected of him and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) is giving him a chance by pairing him up with competition that should give him a good challenge.
This Saturday, a guy named Christian Rodriguez will go up against someone else named Rosas. Both of them have had professional fights in the UFC, LFA, CFFC and Bellator since 2019. It’s expected that Rosas will remain undefeated and win the fight – he’s a favorite according to DraftKings. However, there’re still some unanswered questions surrounding this battle.
If Rodriguez takes Rosas to the scorecards, will people be let down? Will a fast finish impress viewers or make them doubt Rosas’ skills? If Rosas does well, will it cause people to quickly push his career?
I don’t know how good Rosas is but I’m excited for what should be a thrilling 2023 for him!
Martin: I’m really excited to see if Kelvin Gastelum and Chris Curtis will fight, even though Gastelum hasn’t had the best luck lately. However, my top pick is the Rob Font vs. Adrian Yanez match at Bantamweight division – that’s the most thrilling weight class in all types of fighting!
Yanez looks very likely to win a title in future matches, especially with his boxing skills which are the best of any other UFC fighter. He has won nine consecutive fights, including five in the UFC. However, this time he will be facing Font who is going to be more difficult to beat than the ones he fought before.
Yanez has the chance to prove if he is strong enough to become a real danger for the champion in the 135-pound division. That’s what Font stands for – he is a great fighter but he has been unable to beat top opponents in this weight group, so winning against Yanez would show exactly how skilled Yanez is.
At UFC 287, two fighters are going to battle it out and it is sure to be an awesome fight. Damon and I are both excited for this matchup as we think that the winner might get Fight of the Night honors after the match is over. Kevin Gastelum is one of those fighters, but in honor of him, I’m directing my attention to Joe Pyfer – known as Mr. Bodybagz – who will put on a show!
The UFC debut of the 26-year-old last September was a really successful moment for him, despite being pretty violent. His story is like something out of a Rocky movie where he overcame some difficult times in his childhood such as homelessness and an arm injury during his first Contender Series tryout. If it wasn’t for Dana White, who kindly paid for a year’s worth of rent money, he would have ended up without anywhere to go.
If someone can handle tough times and still make it to a place like the UFC and achieve awesome results, they deserve all of our respect.
Pyfer is an amazing MMA fighter with really fast hands and a 90% win rate. He’s being added to a 185-pound division that already has plenty of other great fighters like Bo Nickal, Khamzat Chimaev, and more! At UFC 287 he’s been matched up against Gerald Meerschaert who is known for being used as a “prove-it” fight by the event planners.
