Continuing to trade verbal barbs with career rival, Israel Adesanya following his UFC 287 middleweight title loss last month, Brazilian knockout artist, Alex Pereira has called for the City Kickboxing mainstay to accept a trilogy rubber match with him in order to determine who is the better mixed martial arts fighter.
Pereira, a former undisputed middleweight champion under the banner of the UFC, managed to snatch Adesanya’s title back in November of last year at Madison Square Garden, landing a fifth round standing TKO victory at UFC 281.
However, last month, Adesanya would score his first victory over Alex Pereira in their four-fight series, stopping the Sao Paulo knockout ace with a thunderous second round KO in the main event of UFC 287 in Miami, Florida.
Despite many backing Pereira’s 3-1 combined winning record over Adesanya throughout their kickboxing and mixed martial arts fighting series, the latter claimed that the quality of his knockout win over the former last month, should gazump any of his prior losses to Pereira.
Alex Pereira urges Israel Adesanya to fight him in UFC title trilogy fight
Taking umbrage with Adesanya’s theory, Pereira, who is set to make his light heavyweight division debut in his next Octagon walk, urged the Nigerian-Kiwi to meet him in a third mixed martial arts contest.
“In kickboxing it’s impossuble now to be better than me,” Alex Pereira tweeted in response to Israel Adesanya. “In MMA it’s 1:1. Be real with your fans and let’s show the world who is better in MMA.”
Yet to book an opponent for his expected light heavyweight climb, Pereira, a former two-weight champion under the GLORY Kickboxing banner, has weighed up potential 205lbs landings against the likes of former title challenger, Magomed Ankalaev, former champion, Jan Blachowicz, as well as current division kingpin, Jamahal Hill of note.