Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira‘s rivalry is legendary at this point. Their strife began when both were kickboxers. Pereira was able to beat Adesanya in both of their kickboxing encounters. And in 2017, when Adesanya joined the UFC, Pereira followed. Just four years later, the Brazilian joined the UFC.

Interestingly, one of the reasons he came to the UFC was Adesanya talking trash about him in an interview. Soon both fought inside the Octagon and Pereira shocked the MMA world by defeating the middleweight champion. Adesanya, of course, came back and avenged the defeat earlier this year with a second-round knockout. There is seemingly no end to their bitter rivalry, online or offline. Now, there is a new arena where fans might soon see them in action against each other.

Alex Pereira challenges Israel Adesanya on Twitter

Dana White might be the only person who knows if and when ‘Poatan’ will ever meet the ‘The Last Stylebender’ again inside an Octagon. But fans can take heart from the fact that Pereira is always up for a fight in any domain – real or virtual.

In a tweet from his official Twitter account, Alex Pereira challenged Adesanya to a match – in UFC 5 (which he accidentally wrote as EA5). “Yes! Lets play online EA5!” the Brazilian wrote.

‘Stylebender’ accepted the challenge with one caveat. “I need a PS5,” he said. Many fans pointed out that this was most probably a paid promotion for EA Sports’ upcoming UFC 5 coming out in late October. But this did prompt a lot of reactions from the fans as they are already anticipating a match between the two, even comparing their rivalry to ‘Goku’ and ‘Vegeta’ from the ‘Dragon Ball Z’ anime series.

UFC 5 is a video game being released by ‘Electronic Arts’ studio, better known as EA Sports. The game will be released on October 27, 2023, and it will mark the fifth installment of the game. The first installment came out in 2014. The UFC 5 game trailer features Israel Adesanya, Valentina Shevchenko, and Alex Volkanovski, who will also feature on the cover of the game.

Fans react to ‘Izzy’ and ‘Poatan’s back-and-forth: “We all want it”

Social media users took to the comments section to make their thoughts known. They had several things to say. Some even felt that both the fighters should become friends. “They just need to become friends. We all want it.”

Seeing both the athletes agree to something isn’t what fans expect. However, Adesanya and Pereira share mutual respect. This was visible when they bumped into each other at an airport a few months ago and interacted. Back then too, many felt they should become friends.

“I have the perfect venue for both of them to fight it out virtually! Let’s make it happen!” Another pointed out Pereira’s mistake in the tweet, “My guy said let’s play ea5 AP different”

One user felt this was a ploy by Dana White to make money, “Dana finding a way to make money on a virtual fight”

Another compared them to legendary ‘Dragon Ball Z’ characters, “Goku and Vegeta for real.” This may not come across as too shocking as ‘Izzy’ loves anime, and several of his UFC walkouts have references from his favorite animes. At UFC 243, he had an anime-inspired dance routine en route to the Octagon.

Another found the whole exchange funny, “Lol these two are hilarious.” 

“These 2 are gonna be fighting each other until they’re 70,” wrote a fan. While there’s no way of confirming that, it seems fans expect a lot of banter between the fighters, years down the line.

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“Alex really tryna beat him in everything,” wrote a social media user. After all, Alex Pereira not only defeated Adesanya in kickboxing matches, and once in the UFC, but with the recent challenge, he seems interested in defeating ‘Izzy’ in video games too.

As Pereira moves on to fight for the light heavyweight title and Adesanya’s immediate fighting fixtures remain unknown, it will be interesting to see whether fans will get their wish fulfilled.

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