Israel Adesanya reveals blueprint to neutralize Alex Pereira's debilitating leg kicks
Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya have a storied competitive rivalry across multiple combat sports, with the latter recently going into specific detail about certain facets of their MMA rematch. Adesanya appeared on the podcast Flagrant where he has appeared multiple times, now being referred to as the OG guest in the YouTube video description.
Several topics were covered during this chat about a banked interview that the podcast team recorded a few weeks back before the topic of Pereira came up. When discussing their second UFC matchup that saw Adesanya secure his first combat sports win over Pereira, Israel Adesanya said:
"Pereira, like certain people, are just used to taking leg kicks. That's when I'm able to push Pereira backwards is I'll go southpaw because I can just check the leg kick. From this stance, I can just turn the knee in and then I was pushing him backward southpaw. So then I'm like, ok... he can fight both ways but not as good."
Check out Israel Adesanya's analysis of how to effectively check Alex Pereira's leg kicks [1:08:56] below.
Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya's legendary combat sports saga
Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya are quite prominent combative pairings of this generation. The two famously waged war with one another on four occasions. Aspoatan-won-ufc-light-heavyweight-title-i-ll-again" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-is-sponsored="false"> of this writing, with two kickboxing contests and a pair of mixed martial arts fights in the UFC.
The now-37-year-old's first battle with Adesanya was at the inaugural Glory of Heroes card in Apr. 2016. This contest saw Pereira emerge victorious by a unanimous decision. Their sophomore kickboxing contest saw a more definitive result with Pereira knocking out Adesanya in the third round at Glory of Heroes 15 in Mar. 2017.
'Poatan' had his first MMA fight against Adesanya specifically, their third fight overall, at UFC 281 in Nov. 2022. This matchup saw Pereira advance in the series to 3-0 over Adesanya as he took the middleweight belt from his rival, who he followed to the sport of MMA.
The native of Sao Paulo state would lose his hold on the UFC middleweight title in his first defense, and at that moment also saw Adesanya notch his first win over Pereira. Their UFC 287 headlining fight saw Israel Adesanya knock out Alex Pereira in the second round during their Apr. 2023 meeting.
Adesanya's win over Pereira adds intrigue to their potential rematch. Despite the interest from the Brazilian, 'Izzy' hasn't been so keen on pursuing a fight with his old foe.