There was something almost disquieting about Israel Adesanya’s calmness, as he sat in front of the media and dissected another loss to Alex Pereira. It was a result that would have destroyed most men, so fragile can the ego be; for Adesanya, it was a third defeat by his own personal bogeyman.
Pereira had stolen a decision win over the Nigerian-New Zealander in their first kickboxing clash, come from behind to knock Adesanya out cold in their rematch, and now he had followed the “Last Stylebender” into mixed martial arts. Scything his way through middleweights, Pereira soon set up a title fight with Adesanya – so dominant atop the division – to present the UFC champion with a shot at vengeance.
But a vindictive Pereira ensured otherwise, on a brutally familiar night for Adesanya. Stylebender was once more en route to a victory over the Brazilian when, in the final round, Pereira finally made contact with his signature left hook – the shot that collapsed Adesanya in their second meeting – to forge a finish against the fence. As Adesanya urgently attempted to escape, his legs failed him, a result of a gradual accumulation of low kicks. He was rooted in place, reduced to using his head as a pendulum to buy time, but he had absorbed enough strikes; the fight, and Adesanya’s title reign, came to the most abrupt of endings.
“I’m grateful,” Adesanya said at the post-fight press conference in November. “What a life, what a moment. F***ing crazy, isn’t it? Similar to the last time... same story. It’s crazy.”
The composure was disconcerting.
“People expect me to handle this like they would,” the 33-year-old, one of the most dynamic strikers and popular fighters in UFC history, later told MMA Fighting. “They project, and are probably just like, ‘[You should be] under a rock or in a cave somewhere.’ But I’m like, ‘Nah.’ I’m living my life, I’m really grateful – I meant that. I’m blessed to be in the position I’m in, the opportunities I’ve gotten, to be able to do what I’ve done, and to be able to set up... not even a comeback, but set up for the next chapter.”
The pages have turned slowly in the months since, but finally that next chapter has arrived. On Saturday, in the main event of UFC 287 in Miami, Adesanya will try once more to obtain that elusive win over Pereira. It is, in Adesanya’s own words, his “last shot”.
“The mindset is different, definitely,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel last week. “I’m hunting, and I mean that in every sense of the word,” he added, speaking as the challenger for the first time in four years. “I like it, because it puts it all on me, and it’s kind of poetic in a way. One life, roll the dice. This is my last shot, and I’m going to give it all I’ve got in every sense of the word.”
Across the cage, Pereira remains the stoic obstacle in Adesanya’s way, as he always has been. “Poatan”, translating to “hands of stone”, said this week: “Even I am scared of myself. I am breaking mirrors at home so I can avoid myself.”
Adesanya will not be wishing any bad luck on his rival, however – not seven years’ worth, not even 25 minutes’ worth on Saturday. Stylebender craves a pure victory, one built on merit alone. To achieve that, he will have to not only out-strategise Pereira but also avoid the fight-changing, career-altering power of Poatan.
Adesanya has done so before, in his first clash with the 35-year-old, when he was unfortunate not to secure the win on the judges’ scorecards. But in the subsequent showdowns, Pereira erased Adesanya’s leads in an instant.
Every fight that Adesanya and Pereira have contested with each another has suggested that Adesanya can win, he just hasn’t. In their last meeting, Adesanya had his rival out on his feet at the very end of the first round. And as the UFC ends its 20-year absence from Miami, Adesanya will believe that he can break a seven-year curse against Pereira.
“He and I know... F*** the fans, the reporters, all that; he and I know exactly what I can do to him. I know what he can do to me,” Adesanya told ESPN this week. “Each time I’ve fought him, I’m always winning until I’m not. If he just beat my a*** from bell to bell, then f***... I’d probably still be this confident, I’d still talk s***, but it’s not been the case.
“I’m always beating him, I’m always dominating him until he finds that way to win.”
Adesanya has clearly taken confidence from that notion, though it can also be taken the other way: Adesanya is always beating Pereira, but he has never beaten Pereira.
That is all that matters to him now. “F*** the belt, f*** everything else,” he said earlier this year. “I have to beat this guy, that’s my motivation: just beating him. They can say whatever they want, 1-0 or 3-0.
“I don’t keep score, I settle them, and I just need one. I’m going to get it done.”
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