Alex Pereira upset Israel Adesanya with a knockout in the fifth round. Before that, Dustin Poirier beat Michael Chandler with a choke, and Zhang Weili won a 115-pound title over Carla Esparza the same way.
Alex Pereira defeated Israel Adesanya via technical knockout in the fifth round to claim the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s middleweight title, ending Adesanya’s reign atop the division and likely setting up a rematch sometime in the future.
Pereira wins via technical knockout. Adesanya slipped, tried to recover and then retreated to the fence, where Pereira caught him and tagged him with punches. It ends Adesanya’s title reign at six defenses and likely sets up a rematch sometime soon.
Adesanya takes Round 4. Controlled the clinch and did more work with grappling against the fence. Pereira is likely down 3-1 and will need a finish.
Round 3 goes 10-9 for Adesanya. The fight between two kickboxers somehow ended on the ground, but Adesanya ended up on top in the clinch against the fence and in full mount toward the end, and also landed a kick to the abdomen. Made Pereira feel most of his weight for the bulk of that round.
From the cageside view, Alex Pereira is noticeably bigger than Adesanya, and he is not afraid to stand up with him like most of his recent opponents, just as Adesanya predicted.
