Henry Cejudo has given his thoughts on the middleweight title fight at UFC 281.
There is a huge middleweight title fight coming to New York City on November 12. Champion Israel Adesanya will be taking on a former foe Alex Pereira at Madison Square Garden. The interesting thing about this fight is that these two have fought each other before. They faced off against each other in kickboxing and will now have another go at each other with the UFC title on the line.
Adesanya has been at the top of the UFC middleweight division since 2019. Now with 23 professional MMA bouts under his belt, it seems he has left his kickboxing days behind him. Now however those days might be back to haunt him as one of the few men to have ever defeated him in kickboxing, Pereira has made his way to the UFC. Pereira beat Adesanya twice in kickboxing and now is looking to do the same once again. Former Champion Henry Cejudo thinks he can do just that.
Henry Cejudo is breaking down this middleweight title fight
Cejudo took to his YouTube channel to break down how he sees the fight going and to make his prediction.
I just think he’s (Pereira) a little more diverse. There’s a couple of things that Israel does wrong in mixed martial arts and I think Pereira will end up capitalizing. Number one is his stance, he’s a little too wide off of here, his stance so I do believe Pereira is gonna go ahead and pick at the front legs,” Cejudo said. “Israel tends to get people to come in and then hell throw that hook and Pereira has been there before where he has an ability to be able to catch him with those right hands as soon as he leaves for that.”
“Obviously Israel is a champion for a reason, but I also see the more the diversity that Pereira has I think is what makes him a little more dangerous, because there is one thing that Israel does leave behind, which is very wide, so I think he may end up changing this during the fight is his stance.
“Notice he’s very heavy on his legs, because he’s able to rock back and forth, and really a lot of mixed martial artists haven’t been able to take advantage of that front leg. But when you got a guy like Pereira who’s been there before, who’s a kickboxer, who’s known for kicking, this is where the fight could pay dividends on his side.”
Cejudo is picking Pereira to win this bout because of all the success he has had against Adesanya in the past. However, Pereira is fairly new to MMA, only having seven professional fights. So far Pereira has shown he has what it takes to compete with the best in the UFC and must now showcase that in his first title bout. Most people are looking forward to this fight, including UFC president Dana White who has promised fireworks.
Watch the entire breakdown here:
