Daniel Cormier lauds UFC matchmakers for the way they’ve built up Alex Pereira’s career.
Just three fights in, the former two-division Glory Kickboxing champion is projected to challenge UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
After knocking out Andreas Michailidis and picking up a decision win over Bruno Silva, Pereira (6-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) scored a first-round knockout of top contender Sean Strickland this past Saturday at UFC 276 to punch his ticket to a title shot.
“The UFC matchmaking (inaudible) perfect with this guy.” Cormier said on his ESPN show “DC & RC.” “Because they never really let him fight a Marvin Vettori or anyone that can, like, stymie him and hold him against the side of the octagon, and now you get him vs. Izzy.”
The UFC’s fast track of Pereira is no accident. “Poatan” holds two wins over Adesanya in kickboxing, one by knockout, which has many thinking he’s the biggest threat to the dominant middleweight champ. But Cormier would like to remind everyone of how those fights actually played out.
“But I want to tell people, don’t get too lost in the results of the first fight (Adesanya vs. Pereira),” Cormier added. “Izzy was beating him in the second fight. Izzy was winning the second fight and got knocked out. So go back and watch that kickboxing fight before we rush to judgement and rush to expectation of what Alex Pereira can do to Israel Adesanya.”
On the same night Pereira emerged as a No. 1 contender, Adesanya notched his fifth title defense by outpointing Jared Cannonier in the main event. Adesanya received boos for the uneventful fight, but had he fought Strickland, Cormier thinks he would have knocked him out too.
“Make no mistake about it, Izzy would have did the same thing to Sean Strickland because Sean Strickland would have kept attacking him,” Cormier said. “And he would have found himself in trouble because he kept attacking him.”
