UFC287 was his rematch against Pereira.
“I mean one thing. People, Earth, I want to say something, listen to me. I hope each of you, behind the screens or in this arena, can feel this level of happiness once in your life. But guess what, you will never feel this level of happiness in your life if you don’t fight for a goal: when they knock you down, when they throw shit at you, they talk bad about you and try to walk all over you. If you stay down you will never get an achievement. Strengthen your mind and feel this level of happiness rise once in a lifetime. But I’m lucky, because I hear this thing here over and over and over again.” Adesanya is elated, he is talking into the microphone, indeed, he has taken the microphone. He’s dancing, cheering, shouting, doing his second best thing in the world: show.
But why is Adesanya so happy? Let’s go back a quarter of an hour.
Adesanya is entering the ring, he is loaded, he has a collar on, he shouts and jumps, he has always been a whimsical fighter but today he has something different. He’s loaded. It’s been a while since he’s been the first in the octagon, he’s used to being the champion not the challenger. Six months ago he lost the UFC middleweight title to his nightmare: Alex Pereira. Adesanya was middleweight champion from 2019 until his match with Pereira, before which he had never lost in his category. Against Pereira however, Adesanya had been knocked out and it wasn’t the first time this had happened to him. In fact, both fighters have a background in kickboxing, a sport in which they have met twice with two victories for Pereira, one of which by knockout.
Adesanya is in the ring, ready for what is probably the most important match of his career. He plays Pereira’s music, the Brazilian enters with a glacial air, doesn’t move a muscle too many, he’s one of the scariest athletes in the whole federation. As soon as Pereira sees the cage, he performs his ritual: he hops a few times, mimics the archer’s pose and shoots an imaginary arrow at Adesanya, shouts, throws a few punches in the air and starts walking again, as if nothing had happened. Pereira enters the ring, goes around to greet the arena and for the first time meets Adesanya’s gaze. There’s crazy tension, nobody says a word. Pereira is a statue, while Adesanya drives away the tension with constant movements. The nastiness that Pereira exudes almost makes Adesanya, who isn’t exactly a boy scout, seem like the good guy of the two. The two fighters approach while the referee makes the usual recommendations, they look into each other’s eyes and off they go, no touch of the gloves.
Start he matches. Especially in five-round matches the first is to study and in fact it happens. Pereira is huge, during the year he weighs about 106 kg, so for Friday’s weigh-in he has to cut 22 kg to reach 84 (the maximum weight allowed in the middleweight category). Between the weigh-in and the match he recovered about 15 kg, almost 100. A crazy advantage. As expected the first round ends without significant hits from both sides, both work very well with low kicks to limit the opponent’s movements.
The second round begins and Adesanya is immediately very aggressive, the gameplan is clear: intensity and concentration, he must not allow Pereira to take the initiative and the center of the octagon in any way. He knows very well, from personal experience, that Pereira has a senseless knockout power for the category (it is no coincidence that they call him Poatan: “hands of stone”) and having his back to the cage is a death sentence against him. But not conceding the center of the octagon to Pereira for 25 minutes is an impossible feat and in fact, about a minute into the second round, Adesanya is forced to retreat, there is a dangerous exchange of blows, both remain unharmed but the match turned on.
The two exchange several blows to the body and Pereira continues to work on Izzy’s legs, his gameplan is to limit the Nigerian’s movements and then more easily lock him in the corner and unload his blows, exactly like six months ago. The strategy is perfect and Pereira is playing it brilliantly. About a minute from the end of the second round he comes in with an excellent low kick, Adesanya retreats and there’s an exchange, Izzy tries to answer because it’s the only way out of these situations, but he’s risking big. A few seconds later Adesanya is locked in the corner again, Pereira enters with a new low kick and ‘the stylebender’ feels it right away, takes the weight off his left leg, leans on the cage and suffers: right to the body and knee to the face, Pereira loads the left hook, hits the mark.
There’s a split second in which the whole arena is thinking that we’re here, that Pereira is about to KO Adesanya exactly like six months ago, that Adesanya really can’t win against Pereira. There’s a problem though, maybe this thought peeps into the mind of the only person who can’t afford to believe it’s over: Pereira.
The Brazilian charges with his left hook to finish off Adesanya and in doing so he reveals himself. Adesanya is one of the best ever in the counter attack, he sees the opening and launches a prayer that has the form of a right jab. Goal. The right foot enters perfectly, Pereira feels the blow and lowers his head, he is raising it and the direct second arrives, the light goes out and Pereira is on the ground. Adesanya comes down to finish him but there’s no need: he won.
Izzy gets up quickly, catches the imaginary arrow launched by Pereira in the pre-match and shoots it at him, once, twice, three times. And he screams. He has just finished doing the thing he does best in the world and begins the second: the show.
Among the various celebrations, a flashback comes to mind: in 2017 Adesanya challenges Pereira in a kickboxing match and Pereira knocks him out with a KO. At the award ceremony, Pereira’s son, who was only a child at the time, makes a gesture that Izzy will never forget: he stands next to the Nigerian athlete and falls,
mimicking the KO that just happened. Adesanya still remembers this and takes no prisoners. He points to Pereira’s son, still a little boy, and falls to the ground, mimicking what just happened to his dad. Revenge is a dish best served cold.