Alex Pereira shared a personal story to explain why he thinks Israel Adesaya needs to accept that he just can’t defeat him.
The new UFC middleweight champion is a firm believer that styles making fights. Having defeated Israel Adesanya three times, two in kickboxing and the last one in MMA at UFC 281, Alex Pereira gave his thoughts on why it may be time for the ‘Last Stylebender’ to understand that his way of fighting just does not match up well with the Brazilian’s.
To drive his point home even further, Pereira shared a personal story during an interview with Super Lutas (h/t CrashMMA). In the conversation, ‘Poatan’ revealed how he lost three amateur kickboxing matches to the same man and attributes the defeats to their styles just not matching up well for him.
Although he does not name the man who defeated him three times before, Poatan believes he would lose again to said fighter even today—despite that fact that the mysterious foe is apparently already retired. The way Pereira sees it, Adesanya would benefit from accepting this mindset before pursuing another shot at revenge.
“I’m going to say something that I’ve never told anyone,” Pereira said. “I have 28 fights in amateur. I won 25 of them by knockout. I lost three fights. Three times to the same guy. In amateur, three fights. I don’t understand why. But now I do. The styles don’t match.
“The guy has stopped fighting,” Alex added. “If I fought him again today, I think I’d lose again. Even though he’s done fighting, if I fought him, I would lose. If I fought him 10 times, I’ll lose. Adesanya needs to get that, the same way Whittaker did. He just doesn’t accept it.”
Apparently Alex Pereira lost to the same guy 3 times in amateur pic.twitter.com/avvICxZEgB
— Manolo (@manny_mma_) November 24, 2022
Alex Pereira (7-1) became the new UFC middleweight champion when he TKO’d Adesanya at UFC 281, earlier this month. The win put Poatan on a four-fight victorious streak in the UFC, with wins over Andreas Michailidis, Bruno Silva and Sean Strickland before defeating his former kickboxing rival. The 35-year-old’s sole MMA loss remains a submission defeat to Quemuel Ottoni, back in October 2015.