Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira had one of the most memorable rivalries in recent memory. While Pereira stunned ‘The Last Stylebender’ at UFC 281 to win the UFC middleweight championship, Adesanya returned with a devastating knockout to reclaim the title back at UFC 287. Moreover, the reigning champion recently shared his thoughts on ‘Poatan’s title run in the promotion.

Israel Adesanya seems to be enjoying his time away from the Octagon as he touched down in Puerto Rico to join Logal Paul on his podcast, ‘Imapaulsive’. They talked about many things when Izzy claimed that he was the reason for Pereira’s UFC success.

Israel Adesanya claimed that Alex Pereira couldn’t have done it without Adesanya

During his interview on ‘Impaulsive’, ‘The Last Stybender’ claimed to be the real reason behind Alex Pereira’s meteoric rise in the UFC. He said, “I gave it to him. He wouldn’t have got as far as he did without me.” Before they came to the UFC, both fighters fought each other in Glory of Heroes. They fought twice, and Alex Pereira was the victor on both occasions.

Adesanya claims that UFC already had a rivalry on their hands from their kickboxing days. Hence, the promotion went ahead with it. They setup up Pereira’s path to the title, which ‘The Last Stylebender’ claimed was an easy path. He said, “He beat me already and there’s a storyline there. They [the UFC] gave him an easy route.”

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‘The Last Stylebender’ compares his tile run to Pereira’s

Israel Adesanya proceeded to compare his middleweight champion run to that of ‘Poatan’. He felt that his title run was better than his arch-rival. Izzy said, “If you look at my title run, my run to the title, and his run to the title, it’s not even close.”

Having fought the likes of Robert Whittaker and Anderson Silva, Izzy claims to have fought fighters with a lot of variety in their fighting styles. Israel Adesanya believes that he fought much bigger names than Alex Pereira. “I fought different styles, I fought big names, [but] he fought one, like, medium name,” said the reigning middleweight champion.

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It seems like their rivalry isn’t over due to the fact that Israel Adesanya doesn’t seem to stop taking a jibe at his arch-nemesis on social media. However, Pereira will be focussing on his light heavyweight debut against veteran Jan Blachowicz. They will fight at UFC 290, which features one of the best cards of the year. We will have to wait and see how things pan out for ‘Poatan’ in a new weight class.

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