As predicted by Ikeja Bird, Israel Adesanya’s reign as UFC middleweight champion ended following a knockout win by Alex Pereira.
The Brazilian once again proved to be Adesanya’s nightmare after delivery a superb performance to knock the Last Style Bender out in their UFC 281 main event card.
Pereira had beaten Izzy twice as a kickboxer five years back and Poatan repeated the same feat in style to win his first title with the UFC in just four fights at the Madison Square Garden in New York.
Here are 3 reasons why Israel lost his middleweight title to Pereira
1. Style
Though Izzy dominated most part of the contest but the Nigerian leaned on the cage too often which made him pay in the final round.
Pereira usually closed the distance and landed punches which Izzy evaded but a couple.of them caused damages to the champion.
2. Back luck
Israel was leading on the judges scorecard until the fight was stopped in the fifth round.
The 33-year-old threw crucial punches and successfully got a takedown and everything was going according to plan until tragedy struck minutes away to the end of the fight.
Izzy are too many punched until he got wobbled leaving the referee with no choice but to stop the fight.
3. Ghosts of the past
In the build up to the fight, Adesanya played down his previous encounters with Pereira would be in his heading into the main event of UFC 281.
However, the champion bowed down to the Poatan for the third time in five years and the defeat will continue to play in his head for the rest of his career.
Adesanya’s smooth run in the middleweight division since joining the UFC has not been swept apart despite clearing the roaster with 12 straight wins.
