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USA Today Sports Media Group
USA Today Sports Media Group
Sport
Farah Hannoun

Alex Pereira tells Israel Adesanya to stop ‘making excuses’ for UFC 281 loss: Thank the referee ‘for saving your life’

Whether or not Marc Goddard stopped the fight at the moment he did, Alex Pereira thinks he would have finished Israel Adesanya at UFC 281.

Pereira (7-1 MMA, 4-0 UFC) dethroned Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) of the middleweight title with a fifth-round TKO at Madison Square Garden in New York. The Brazilian had “The Last Stylebender” on wobbly legs with a big combination, prompting referee Goddard to stop the fight while Adesanya was still standing.

Adesanya immediately protested the stoppage and said he would have wanted more time to defend himself. But “Poatan” doesn’t think Adesanya was intelligently defending himself, and the referee did him a favor (via Instagram):

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