Brazil’s Alex Pereira is the new UFC middleweight champion following impressive victory over Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 281.
The event took place last night at MSG in New York.
Pereira, the former two-weight division champion of GLORY, TKO’d Adesanya in the fifth round of their clash, defeating “The Last Stylebender” for a third time. The first two bouts between the pair were in kickboxing.
Adesanya hurt Pereira badly at the end of the first round with a right hand and a left hook, and again in the third with a kick to the midsection while Pereira was down and then a right hand.
Pereira was wobbled a few other times, but managed to survive. But the first time that Pereira landed big, the show was over. The hard-hitting Pereira cracked Adesanya with a combo and the course of UFC history was changed. The first right hand hurt Adesanya and froze him against the cage. Pereira poured it on and got the finish at 2:01 of the final round.
That was Adesanya’s first loss at middleweight in the UFC, though he lost a decision to Jan Blachowicz in a bid for the light heavyweight title.
