Alex Pereira hopes he and Israel Adesanya can bury the hatchet after the latter finally defeats him at UFC 287

This past weekend at UFC 287, Alex Pereira suffered the first defeat of his octagon career at the hands of Israel Adesanya. The latter regained the UFC middleweight title in the process.

ADESANYA GETS ONE BACK! HE KNOCKS PEREIRA OUT COLD! 😱 #UFC287 https://t.co/P01reBg6je

Alex Pereira’s loss to Israel Adesanya was even more devastating as it came via knockout. Counting his lengthy career in kickboxing, it was the third time that ‘Poatan’ had been stopped via strikes.

After allowing a few days for his loss to sink in, yesterday saw Pereira release his first statement following the defeat, posting a video to his YouTube channel. Pereira discussed numerous things during his statement, ranging from whether Adesanya’s win made him the better fighter overall to the chances of ‘The Last Stylebender’ training with him in Brazil.

One of the most interesting things that ‘Poatan’ spoke about is the rivalry between him and Adesanya. When asked about this rivalry, Pereira claimed that he has never seen ‘The Last Stylebender’ as a rival per se:

“I want to be good with anyone...they asked me a lot of times about the rivalry. I don’t have a rivalry with anyone...I’m not a rival of Adesanya. He’s my rival at the time...he hadn’t won any fights, and he had this hurt. Maybe today, after having a victory over me, maybe his mind will change, I don’t know...if he will change, it will be cool.”

Essentially, what fans can take from this is that despite Adesanya’s wild celebrations and the heat the two men had coming into the fight, there’s certainly no bad blood from Pereira’s end of things. More importantly, it seems that he'd like to hope there is no bad blood remaining on the part of 'The Last Stylebender' either.

‘Poatan’ and Adesanya had already shown their respect to one another following their bout in a fascinating backstage exchange at UFC 287. Whether they do end up training together, as Adesanya suggested they could, will probably depend on the possibility of a third fight between the two in the octagon.

What happened after Alex Pereira’s last knockout defeat prior to his loss to Israel Adesanya?

Prior to this weekend’s knockout loss to Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira had never been stopped via strikes in MMA. However, he was knocked out twice in the kickboxing ring.

In what could bode well for his future in the UFC, following both defeats, ‘Poatan’ bounced back well and went on a winning run directly after. He suffered his first TKO loss in November 2012, falling to defeat at the hands of Dutchman Jason Wilnis when he was forced to retire on his stool after the second round.

Pereira returned from this defeat to win his next three bouts. Following this, he wasn’t stopped until July 2016, when Ukraine’s Artur Kyshenko knocked him out in the second round of their clash. Interestingly enough, Pereira bounced back from that defeat by beating none other than Adesanya, knocking him out with his famed left hook in the third round.

Watch Alex Pereira’s knockout loss to Artur Kyshenko below.