Behind Open Despise for Alex Pereira, Israel Adesanya Surprisingly Comes Clean on Rival’s Only Chance Against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 303, Fans React

Israel Adesanya is here with his verdict on who would win the UFC 303 fight between Alex Pereira, and Jiri Prochazka. Very few have fought Pereira twice. Prochazka is one of the few fighters who agreed to fight him a second time.

‘Poatan’ won the fight against ‘The Czech Samurai’ in UFC 295, with a second-round TKO, still, Adesanya did not select Pereira as the possible winner. ‘The Last Stylebender’ picked Jiri Prochazka to beat his former rival Pereira with a knockout. The former middleweight champ noted that the UFC 303 fight was interesting and gave his prediction on YouTube.

Israel Adesanya has fought Pereira twice as well and he explained that Jiri needed to be more mindful of his entrance. He stated, “Alex can surprise him as well, if Jiri takes him down then Alex can surprise him with some new s*** on the ground that he’s been working on.”

Even though Adesanya and Pereira have had an intense rivalry in the UFC, the latter doesn’t seem to have any hard feelings for Adesanya as he previously hinted in an interview that the 34-year-old might win against Dricus Du Plessis.

But Adesanya believes that Pereira’s rematch against Prochazka will be more calculated and the underdog Prochazka might win. Even though Adesanya’s picking against his rival is not surprising, the fans are surprised by his reasoning and rhetoric against Pereira.

Fans express their shock at Israel Adesanya’s verdict

Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira have been long-time rivals and have faced each other in UFC and Kickboxing competitions. They fought at GLORY of Heroes 1 in China in 2016 where Pereira won. However, ‘The Last Stylebender’ believed the fight should have gone in his favor.

Again in 2017, Adesanya lost to Pereira in a third-round KO before he joined UFC and beat Robert Whittaker to take the middleweight title. Then Pereira followed in 2021 and beat Sean Strickland. Finally, in UFC 281, they faced each other again and Pereira won.

One fan thought that Adesanya’s distaste was visible in his analysis. “He is becoming just a sore person. Alex has achieved whatever Israel wanted to achieve and more in almost half the time. He predicted Jamal would beat Alex as well. Adesanya is just a hater at this point,” the fan wrote on X.

Another fan pointed out Adesanya’s saltiness and wrote, “Dam Adesanya going out sad due to Alex”. One more follower emphasized the same as he wrote, “See the hate he will get for his prediction. I believe that Alex fights with magic. All his incantations, etc. Alex uses his tribal powers to fight.”

A netizen, however, justified Israel Adesanya’s choice and wrote, “Yeah they are under the same management with like 5 fighters on the management roster Paul Hughes, Jiri, Max, Leon, Izzy so no brainer he’s picking Jiri.”

Adesanya is taking a break till 2027 as he had announced before, whereas Pereira, after losing to the former, moved up one weight class and is the new UFC light heavyweight champ. He even called out ‘The Last Stylebender’ after winning at the UFC 295. Adesanya might be slightly annoyed because of that as one netizen pointed out, “He picks against Alex every time lol.”

One more fan suggested Adesanya might be carrying a grudge, as he wrote, “This is just an Alex hater rant,” while another follower wrote, “lol this guy stays hating.”

Do you think this rivalry might be revived anytime soon even though both of them have shown respect for each other outside the octagon?