Alex Pereira vs Israel Adesanya Set for Nov 12 at MSG
Alex Pereira vs Israel Adesanya will be taking place at UFC 281 in Madison Square Garden on November 12th. The highly anticipated fight was officially announced to be taking place earlier today on SportsCentre.
Prior to the UFC 276 card, UFC president Dana White claimed that if the two Kickboxing legends, Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira, both managed to defeat their opponents that they would be matched up together in an epic clash for the UFC middleweight title. Well, UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya defended his belt in a dominate unanimous decision victory against the very tough Jared Cannonier, a fight that Izzy has had on his radar for quite some time now. Also, former Glory Kickboxing double champion Alex Pereira secured a first round knockout victory over his opponent the number 4 ranked Sean Strickland, which can be seen below.
Nothing is for certain in MMA as circumstances can always change randomly and frequently, but it appears that we are going to get the trilogy that all kickboxing fans were hoping for when they discovered that Alex was UFC bound on November 12th. Most MMA fans are hyper aware of what both guys have done in the cage, but haven’t really seen much of either of these guys kickboxing careers. Most importantly they most likely haven’t seen Alex and Izzy clash against each other, something that Israel has brought up during several interviews and press conferences. Izzy encouraged fans and the MMA media to watch his fight with Alex, and for good reason too, they’re much closer fights than the highlights portray.
The first fight between the two kickboxing legends took place back in April of 2016 at a Glory of Heroes event in China. After 5 rounds of great kickboxing action, we see Alex Pereira emerge with a big unanimous decision victory over the UFC middleweight champion. However, Izzy was no slouch in this fight and as always put on one hell of a performance, which can be seen below.
The rematch took place about 11 months later in March of 2017 and the end result is something most MMA fans have seen. This fight took place at Glory of Heroes 7 on Alex Pereira’s home turf in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The fight ended with Alex landing a devastating left hook that left Izzy incapacitated and left Alex with a big 3rd round KO victory. However, before that KO moment that everyone in the MMA world has probably seen by now, there was a whole fight that took place. A fight that Izzy would like fans and reporters to watch in its entirety before making comments on it, which can be seen below.
The middleweight division in kickboxing has a long history of being flooded with talent and seems to have an eye for MMA these days. Middleweight kickboxing legends Simon Marcus and Jason Wilnis, who also have wins over the UFC middleweight champ, have recently made transitions to MMA. Wilnis most recently fought at KSW 70 in May of 2022, where he unfortunately broke his finger after a slip that happened when he threw a kick. Marcus made his MMA debut at Unified MMA 42 in December of 2021, where he scored himself a technical decision victory over Anton Tokarchuk. If all the cards fall in to place and these two fighters can string some wins together, then it’s very possible that we will get to see 4 elite level kickboxers in the UFC middleweight division.
However, as of right now we only have two elite kickboxers in the UFC middleweight division, Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya, who will be each others next dance partner on November 12. After seeing both kickboxing bouts how do you think an MMA fight between the two will go? Will the difference in rule sets come into play? Will the smaller gloves play a role in changing the outcome of the first two displays? What do you think will happen when these two kickboxing titans clash in an epic UFC title fight? Let us know in the comments or on social media!
