NEW YORK—UFC president Dana White didn’t need to understand Portuguese to feel the intensity from Alex Pereira’s corner before the start of the fifth round.
In between the fourth and fifth rounds, Pereira’s corner implored him to seize the moment in his middleweight title bout against Israel Adesanya.
“It was straight out of a movie,” says White, speaking exclusively with Sports Illustrated following the main event. “Pereira’s team was screaming at himself. They were telling him that he was losing the fight, telling him he needed to throw punches in bunches, to go finish. He had five f------ minutes to finish him and become the champion, and that’s what he did.”
