Daniel Cormier wants to see a trilogy bout between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira next.
Adesanya (23-2 MMA, 12-2 UFC) avenged his stoppage loss to Pereira (7-2 MMA, 4-1 UFC) with a knockout of his own to reclaim the middleweight title in this past Saturday’s UFC 287 headliner in Miami.
Considering Adesanya already has beaten many of top-ranked contenders at middleweight – some of them even twice – Cormier thinks a rubber match makes sense for both.
“I really do feel like they should do Izzy vs. Alex right now because I also worry about Alex with guys like Marvin Vettori,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I think Robert Whittaker is probably the worst matchup for Alex Pereira because he does have the ability to take him down and kind of slow him down. The Izzy fight just kind of makes sense because they’re 1-1 and Pereira was actually fighting really good on Saturday night. It felt like he was going to run away with the win.”
All three judges awarded Adesanya Round 1 before he scored a knockout in Round 2, which slightly surprised Cormier.
“I feel like Alex was very aware early of the power of Adesanya, but I thought he felt like maybe the threat wasn’t as great as the fight went on because he was having so much success,” Cormier said. “All of the official judges scored the first round for Israel Adesanya. I thought Pereira found success in that first round. I guess maybe I didn’t see it as clearly as I thought.”
Adesanya was dismissive of a trilogy, but like Cormier, Ben Askren thinks it’s the fight to make.
“I think it’s the right fight,” Askren said. “I think you have a couple of ways to look at it. No. 1, Alex is either 3-1 or 1-1 against Adesanya, and then when you look at the division, (Adesanya) beat them all. He beat Whittaker twice, he beat Vettori twice, he beat (Jared) Cannonier, he beat (Paulo) Costa, and then No. 6 is (Dricus) Du Plessis. He’s the only one that makes a little bit of sense, (and) he’s not ready.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 287.
