Marvin Vettori doesn’t like Israel Adesanya’s chances in a rematch with Alex Pereira.
Marvin Vettori thinks Alex Pereira has Israel Adesanya’s number.
With wins over Adesanya in kickboxing and MMA, including two stoppages, Pereira is the new man to beat at middleweight. And Vettori believes “he’ll beat Izzy again” in the rematch, solidifying his dominance in the division and retaining the title.
“No, no, if they (Pereira) fight with Izzy again, he’ll beat Izzy again. It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like he had a mission on beating him,” Vettori told The Schmo in a recent interview (h/t Cole Shelton).
Pereira might have Adesanya’s number, but Vettori thinks he has a good chance of defeating him. However, he’ll need to win at least a couple more fights before he secures another title shot, having failed to capture the middleweight belt in his unanimous decision defeat to Adesanya at UFC 263.
“But I don’t mind him, I like him,” Vettori said of Pereira, the newly-crowned UFC middleweight champion. “If I have a chance to fight him, definitely I wanna fight him. Now, I feel like I have to do a couple of fights before him, we will see what happens, I’m not stressing about it. Definitely, I would like to fight him and I would do well against him.”
Vettori returns to the Octagon in March when he takes on Georgia’s Roman Dolidze at the UFC 286 PPV in London, England.
Pereira and Adesanya are expected to rematch later this year, with the bout likely to be confirmed in the coming weeks.