Israel Adesanya revealed why he mocked Alex Pereira’s son after his last win and the advice he gave to Pereira for his next fight with Jan Blachowicz.
Reigning UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is coming off a sensational performance against former champion and foe Alex Pereira in his last outing at UFC 287 two months ago. After losing the title to Pereira in Nov. 2022, Adesanya leveled the score with his boogeyman in mixed martial arts with a brutal knockout in the second round to reclaim the strap. Adesanya celebrated the victory in style by taunting Pereira’s son in a similar fashion he got mocked in the past.
Following the result, there was speculation about the possibility of a rubber match but talks fizzled out after company president Dana White confirmed Pereira would move up to the light heavyweight division.
Israel Adesanya reveals why he mocked Alex Pereira’s son
In a recent appearance on the Impaulsive podcast, Israel Adesanya revealed why he mocked Pereira’s son after the win.
“I like to believe I’m petty. Trust me, I will hold a grudge,” said Adesanya. “I can let go of some things like the second time he beat me, he knocked me out. I let go of that. I wasn’t like I need to get that back. You know what, that’s life. I left kickboxing because the promotion I was working for stopped giving me fights. So, I let go of that. But what his kid did to me after that fight, it irked me the wrong way. And I didn’t really hold onto it but it was sitting there, just in the archives. And then when the time came I was like, let me go through the files. Oh, that’s right he did that sh*t.”
“There’s a method to my madness though. You have to realize, strike while the iron is hot. For example, someone new want to jump on the Stylebender train, what are they going to do? They are going to ask what’s your numbers, your insights. So when this is trending, run it up. People think I just posted it to be petty. Yeah, a little bit but I’m running the numbers up. The numbers go up, the money goes up.”
Adesanya opens up on the advice he gave to Pereira for his fight with Jan Blachowicz
‘Stylebender’ disclosed he offered advice to ‘Poatan’ for his upcoming fight with Jan Blachowicz when the two ran into each other at an airport last month.
“Afterwards we talked about, I was like, Jan next yeah. He’s fighting a guy that was the first MMA loss for me when I went up to 205. He kinda has the same idea pretty much through our limited conversation skills. We kinda had the same idea of what’s going to happen but I had to let him know. I thought the same thing when I fought Jan. I thought Jan was going to attack me a little bit more but he was patient. So I kinda let him know you be patient too in more so words. I didn’t want to say too much. But yeah I feel like he can knock him out. He can knock out Jan badly because I hurt Jan.”
Israel Adesanya isn’t currently booked for a fight. As a dominant champion who cleared out the division, he could be looking at the winner of Robert Whittaker vs Dricus du Plessis, scheduled for UFC 290 on July 8, for his next opponent.
