Pereira: Adesanya’s Break From Fighting ‘A Waste Of Talent’

Pereira was surprisingly respectful in his callout of Adesanya following UFC 295. Adesanya’s response? Not so much.

Alex Pereira is the new UFC light heavyweight champion after beating Jiri Prochazka via TKO at UFC 295. Following the win, he surprised a lot of people by calling for his first defense to come against … Israel Adesanya.

Pereira and Adesanya have a long history. “Poatan” is 2-0 against “The Last Stylebender” in kickboxing and they’re 1-1 in MMA. That’s 3-1 for Pereira across all combat sports. Now he wants to give Adesanya a chance to narrow the score between the two with a fight for the 205 pound strap.

“I know that I’m not going to do what he did to me and make me fight three times to fight him at middleweight,” Pereira said in the cage following his UFC 295 win. “I know it’s a guy we have a lot of history. I want to make this fight happen. Adesanya, come to daddy.”

Pereira explained that callout during the post-fight presser.

“I meant what I said over there,” Pereira said. “I think I owe this to Adesanya. He motivated me first, and the whole thing with him staying out all this time until 2027, I think it’s a waste of talent. I think I can bring him back.”

Adesanya didn’t seem to interested in the offer. Shortly after Pereira made his callout, “The Last Stylebender” shared a meme of Pereira unconscious on the canvas from their previous fight with Elsa hair. It’s all a reference to their two UFC fights when Izzy said he’d made Alex ‘Frozen like Elsa.’

“Let it goooo,” Adesanya wrote, adding the caption “Lol rent free … I sleep good.”

Pereira shrugged off the trash talk from Adesanya.

“Regardless of what he said, I was respectful, and I mean what I said,” Pereira said. “I’ll give him a chance. He doesn’t seem motivated, and I think that’s a fight everybody would like to see, so I try to push him to come back.”

While UFC CEO Dana White didn’t seem too sure about Pereira vs. Adesanya at 205, he said he’d put it together if Adesanya wanted it.

“Listen, anything is possible,” White said at the UFC 295 post-fight press conference. “I mean, Alex moved up a weight class. I don’t see Izzy moving up a weight class, but I don’t know. I’m sure people do wanna see it again. I don’t know the answer to that question yet.”

“We’ll see when Izzy comes back what he wants to do, where his head is. If you look at what he’s accomplished and his time here too, whatever he wanted to do, if he wanted to move up and fight Pereira again we’d probably do it. We’d probably give him a fight at that weight first, if he wins, and then give him a shot at Pereira. I don’t know, I wouldn’t say that we would never do it.”

For now Israel Adesanya remains out of active competition on a sabbatical. How long it will last is unclear, especially if his rivals keep throwing title shot opportunities at him.

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