Best Buds Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya Spotted Sitting Cageside at UFC 312
Bitter rivals turned best friends Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya were spotted smiling and sitting cageside during Saturday’s UFC 312 pay-per-view event in Sydney.
After fighting four times across two different promotions, Pereira vs. Adesanya is considered by many to be one of the most fierce rivalries in combat sports history. But that’s all in the past as the former two-time middleweight titleholder and the reigning light heavyweight champion were spotted sitting together while taking in all the action at Qudos Bank Arena in The Land Down Under.
After going 2-0 against ‘The Last Stylebender’ under the GLORY Kickboxing banner, Pereira followed Adesanya to the world of mixed martial arts where they would pick up right where they left off at UFC 281. On that night, ‘Poatan’ shocked the world when he scored a fifth-round TKO, going three-up on the Adesanya and taking his 185-pound crown in the process.
Adesanya ultimately got his revenge five months later, catching the Brazilian boogeyman with an overhand right that rendered Pereira unconscious in the opening round of their UFC 287 rematch.
Alex Pereira and Izzy happy to put their rivalry aside … For now
Though there was still plenty of room for a trilogy fight between the two inside the Octagon, both fighters opted to move on from their rivalry. Adesanya stuck around in the middleweight division where he has since lost three in a row while Pereira has been stacking body at 205, earning KOs against Jamahal Hill, Jiri Prochazka, and Khalil Rountree during his 2024 campaign.
Perhaps we could still see Adesanya and ‘Poatan’ complete their threequel on MMA’s biggest stage someday, but for now, it looks like the former foes are happy to put their past behind them.
