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"Is Adesanya's mind game with Pereira a sign of fear or just brilliant strategy?"

Alex Pereira wowed the UFC world after knocking out Jiri Prochazka for a second time and for good measure. However, fans have become accustomed to watching the Brazilian star putting his opponents’ lights out time and time again. Meanwhile, Pereira’s arch-rival, Israel Adesanya, has come out on social media to share a reminder after his emphatic UFC 303 win.

From kickboxing to MMA, there aren’t many fighters who have the kind of rivalry that Israel Adesanya has with Alex Pereira. While ‘Poatan’ attempt to earn two UFC titles became a success, ‘The Last Stylebender’ could not attain that goal when he fought the then-champion, Jan Blachowicz. However, in the wake of Pereira’s successful title defense against Jiri Prochazka, Adesanya took a jibe at his Brazilian rival.

Israel Adesanya reminds Alex Pereira about his UFC 287 loss

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Yes, Israel Adesanya, despite being in the middleweight division, is still taking shots at light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. Although they seem to respect each other as ‘warriors’, it doesn’t look like ‘Izzy’s willing to celebrate the UFC 303 victory of his nemesis and, as such, reminded him of his only loss in the UFC.

Shouting out Alex Pereira’s catchphrase, “Chama,” Israel Adesanya shared an edited video of his UFC 287 knockout win over ‘Poatan’, with an ‘Avatar the Last Airbender’ theme, highlighting the fact that despite people believing that the light heavyweight champion is unbeatable, ‘Izzy’ was the only one to have knocked out Pereira in the promotion.

What does this mean for Israel Adesanya? Is he going to move to light heavyweight? The former two-time middleweight champion has a chance to win the 185lbs strap for a third time at UFC 305, and maybe after that, we could witness a trilogy against Alex Pereira. But until then, we can’t be too sure if these two world-traveled fighters will cross paths again.

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Meanwhile, this tweet from Adesanya was made after he had predicted the crowning of a new champion at UFC 303, which did not come true.

Adesanya’s prediction didn’t come to fruition

Days before the fight, as most UFC fighters do, Israel Adesanya analyzed the short-notice title bout between Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka, claiming that the Czech star would turn out to be the winner. Why? Because despite the knockout prowess ‘Poatan’ has, ‘Izzy’ believed that Prochazka would be better prepared this time out. And prepare he did, but the former champion could not reclaim his title.

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“I’m going to go Jiri, because we’re the chosen few… But also, I think he might have learned from his mistake,” Israel Adesanya stated on his YouTube channel. Now that Jiri Prochazka hasn’t succeeded in winning back the title that he won after beating Alex Pereira’s mentor, Glover Teixeira, he might have to go to the back of the line and earn his way back into the title picture once again.

It will be interesting to see how and if Alex Pereira reacts to Israel Adesanya’s social media post. Meanwhile, share with us your take on the dig ‘Izzy’ took on the light heavyweight champion.