Middleweight champion Alex Pereira puts his title on the line for the first time in the UFC 287 main event on Saturday against former titleholder Israel Adesanya.
Top bantamweight contender Sean O’Malley shared his thoughts on the championship matchup and gave his pick for who will win the fight on his Timbo Sugar Show on YouTube.
“Izzy,” O’Malley said when asked who he was picking. “Let’s get it Izzy.
“I think he’s going to come out and wrestle,” O’Malley said. “I feel like he’s going to come out, he’s got a couple maybe good takedowns, come out, wrestle, put him on his back and really get him thinking. Maybe He won’t be able to match forward as much.”
“Pereira actually took down Izzy in the second round and ended up on top,” O’Malley continued. “Next round Izzy took down Pereira, took his back, kind of. He looked pretty lost but when you’re that strong and if Izzy doesn’t have like really good top pressure, you’re going to be able to do sh*t to get out that’s not necessarily right if Izzy doesn’t capitalize and take his back correctly,” O’Malley said.
“He’ll be able to scoot to the fence, get up, wrist control, or whatever because there’s different levels of ‘black belt’ jiu-jitsu and being like f**king being really good in the UFC and just being able to do everything.”
At the end of the day, O’Malley doesn’t know who’s going to win, but he knows who he’d put his money on. In the rematch, his money is on Adesanya.
“Who knows? You never f**king know. Some people have really good little things that they show in the gym. It’s never really been done in a fight but they’re really good at in the gym. They hit it a lot, but they’ve never done it in a fight”
Sean O’Malley gives his pick for Alex Pereira vs. Israel Adesanya rematch
