Blaine Henry/Sherdog.com illustration
Well, well, well, if it isn’t a new middleweight era. Over the weekend, Alex Pereira captured the middleweight title from incumbent champion Israel Adesanya at UFC 281. Pereira knocked out Adesanya in Round 5 of a fight in which he wasn’t getting blasted, but he wasn’t winning either. Now there is a new king. On today’s issue of Aftermath, we’re looking at that fight and comparing it to the Beforemath column to see what worked for Pereira and Adesanya.
Adesanya is now 0-3 against Pereira across kickboxing and MMA, with two knockout losses, but don’t let that fool you; these fights are closer than the stat line shows.