Sean O’Malley has locked in his prediction for the UFC 287 main event.
Israel Adesanya will look to reclaim his UFC Middleweight Championship this Saturday when he takes on rival Alex Pereira once again. This will be the fourth time they have fought, with Pereira beating him twice in kickboxing and once in MMA at UFC 281 back in November.
O’Malley Backs Adesanya
While Pereira has already stopped Adesanya with strikes on two occasions, O’Malley is picking ‘The Last Stylebender’ to finally get his revenge on the the seismic Brazilian powerhouse, who has been known to cut a lot of weight to make the middleweight limit.
“How much weight is he cutting?” O’Malley said of Pereira on his podcast. “Izzy really only has, he doesn’t have to land clean too many times. If he’s cutting that much weight, if that motherf*cker’s cutting 20-25 pounds [during] fight week, your chin, your brain fluid [can be compromised].”
“Let’s get it, Izzy [by] finish, baby. I think he can come out and wrestle. I feel like he’s gonna come out. He’s got a couple maybe good takedowns. Come out, wrestle, put ’em on his back. Really get him thinking maybe he won’t be able to march forward as much if he does have some kind of— you never f*cking know. Some people have really good little things that they show in the gym, it’s never been really done in a fight. They’re really good at it in the gym. They hit it, they hit it a lot. They’ve never done in a fight. And then boom.”
What If Adesanya Loses?
O’Malley might have his money on Adesanya, but he doesn’t rule out Pereira putting on a 4-peat against his rival. If that happens, ‘Suga’ thinks the former champ could get some big non-title fights lined up with other contenders.
“It would be epic to see Israel come back and do that. But if you say he goes out there and loses, what does he do? He’s already beat everyone. He’s not big enough [for light heavyweight]. You got Bo Nickal, you got Khamzat [Chimaev] right there. Izzy vs. Khamzat, that’s a big fight. If Izzy’s literally just like, ‘let’s f*cking make some big fights happen’. Let’s get it.”
