Israel Adesanya earns bonus for brutal KO on Alex Pereira that saw cold celebration at UFC 287
Israel Adesanya won back his middleweight title in spectacular fashion and got his first win over Alex Pereira.
'The Last Stylebender' endured a tough first round at UFC 287 as he ate several calf kicks but they didn't matter as he closed the show with powerful head strikes in round two and took home a $50,000 bonus.
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Pereira got caught with a massive overhand as he pushed his long-time rival against the fence before Adesanya followed it up with another big strike that knocked the Brazilian out cold in Miami.
The Nigerian-born New Zealander landed a follow-up ground strike before referee Dan Miragliotta intervened and he officially became a two-time UFC champion.
He then made sure the Pereira family knew about it with his cold celebration and later revealed he'd been waiting a long time to do it.
Adesanya entered the main event with his back against the wall after suffering three defeats in his first three meetings with Pereira.
Last year, he was knocked out in round five of a fight he was winning at UFC 281, which was the middleweight duo's first meeting in MMA.
Before that, Pereira ended Adesanya’s 12-fight kickboxing win streak with a controversial unanimous decision victory in 2016 that led to a rematch.
A year later, Pereira left no doubt when he landed a lead left hook to put Adesnaya out cold on the canvas and he later required oxygen as he struggled to instantly regain consciousness.
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"I’m petty,” he said of his celebration.
“I remember. The first time he knocked me out in Brazil, his son came into the ring and then just started to lie dead next to me. I’m like, ‘You f***ing little a******, I’ll whoop your ass if your dad don’t do it for you.’ I looked for his kid, I pointed at him, and I saw him and I was like, ‘Hey, hey, hey,’ just to remind him.”
Adesanya, though, revealed there was full respect between them afterwards: “I told him before, ‘Thank you for all that you’ve done. Thank you for beating me because [by] beating me he made me a better fighter, a better person.’
“In this camp, I didn’t f*** around. If you know me, you know I like a vacation but I didn’t f*** around, I stayed on the grind.
"I’ve been putting myself through it, you can see it at FREESTYLEBENDER on YouTube. I don’t put my highlights on [Instagram], I put in work.
"I get tired so that when I get in here, I don’t get tired.”
And former UFC champion Michael Bisping was left stunned by Adesanya's victory.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said: "Wow. Insane. Just insane.
"We know the history. Pereira had beaten him three times, stopped him twice.
"Well, that doesn't matter because Israel Adesanya put a stamp on that, put a nail in the coffin, put him to bed, knocked him out, put him to sleep, sent him to the shadow realm.
"Whatever you want to call it. Israel Adesanya just closed the book.
"The insane pressure that Izzy must have felt coming into this one. Let's be honest.
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"The guy had beaten him three times, stopped him twice. That is a big, big mental hurdle to overcome.
"What a shot. What a performance. What a comeback," Bisping continued. "All respect to Israel Adesanya because he went out there and he did it in absolute style."
Israel Adesanya got his revenge on Alex Pereira's son by playing dead after knocking his dad out at #UFC287 as a “reminder” for mocking him after a previous fight. Izzy said “I'm petty bro” 🤣😂
— No Jumper (@nojumper) April 9, 2023
