Israel Adesanya is all set to defend his Middleweight crown at UFC 281 against his biggest rival Alex ‘Poatan’ Periera.
In a recent training video shared by Adesanya on his YouTube channel, the current Middleweight king can be seen working on his reflexes. Adesanya looked strong and fast as he did some speed and reaction drills after a Kickboxing sparring session.
“Testing and Improving my reaction time because I’m getting older, father time is the winner of everything, so yeah I’m getting older so I have to keep my reaction up so that’s why I’m doing this kind of training, just like keep my eyes, my Sharingan sharp”, he said.
While most of the fans appreciated the champ for his hard work, some found a minute detail that seem to have exposed Adesanya’s vulnerabilities against Periera. One user wrote “You can see the raised right hand in his training, blocking the left hook. He is deadly aware of the possibilities, And you can say what you want, but he is not shying away from anybody.”
Worth mentioning that it was Periera’s left hook only that Knocked out Adesanya in their second kickboxing encounter. It would be interesting to see whether Adesanya can hinder a striker as technical as Periera from throwing his best technique by keeping his hand up statically.
Significance of this fight for Israel Adesanya
‘The last Stylebender’ is certainly on his path to become one of the greatest Middleweights of all time. In his three-year reign as the Middleweight champion, he has already defended his belt five times. Adesanya is currently on a 12-fight win streak in the 185-pound division, just one short of Anderson Silva’s record of 13.
A win over Periera will see him match Anderson Silva’s record. But in recent times Adesanya has been heavily criticized for his arguably ‘boring’ title fights. Apart from the second-round TKO against Paulo Costa in his second title defense, Adesanya hasn’t been able to impress fight fans with his performances.
Periera on the other hand believes that it will be impossible for Adesanya to not engage in this fight. He further assured that, “if he’s within my reach I will hurt him”. It’s hard to imagine Adesanya defeating Periera in a five-round ‘strategic’ fight. A knockout victory seems to be the possible outcome for both the fighters. All past criticism will fade away if Adesanya can knock out his biggest rival Alex Periera, who seems to be the only hurdle in his road to becoming the Greatest Middleweight of all time.