Alex Pereira holds a record of 33 wins out of his 40 kickboxing appearances, and 7 wins out of his 8 professional appearances. The Brazilian fighter lost his only MMA bout against Quemuel Ottoni in his professional MMA debut at Jungle Fight 82 on October 24, 2015.
PHOTOS: Pereira Dethrones Adesanya As UFC Middleweight Champion
Brazil's Alex Pereira pulled off an upset against Israel Adesanya with a technical knockout in the fifth round during the main event at the UFC 281 to become the new UFC middleweight champion. pic.twitter.com/jnj8jIxnSr
— Punch Newspapers (@MobilePunch) November 13, 2022
The former number-one fighter in kickboxing has created massive chaos in the UFC arena. In his last fight, the main event of UFC 281, Poatan secured a TKO victory over the New Zealander Israel Adesanya, which earned him the UFC middleweight title.
The Pereira vs. Adesanya fight drew huge attention as they had already faced off twice in kickboxing, where “Last Stylebender” lost both fights. So it was their third face-off, but again, the Nigerian-born failed to avenge his previous defeats and defend the UFC middleweight title.
Alex Pereira in the corner of Anderson Silva when he faced Israel Adesanya.
This guy was always there looking to destroy Adesanya anyway possible 🤣 #rawmmanews pic.twitter.com/qjBTRYsKcn— RAW MMA NEWS (@rawmmanews) November 20, 2022
Recently, Poatan spoke about his amateur kickboxing career, in which he fought 28 times and won 25 times but lost three times to the same guy, and he considers that the reason for those three defeats was not matching the styles of Pereira and the unknown fighter.
“I’m going to say something that I’ve never told anyone. I have 28 fights in amateur. I won 25 of them by knockout. I lost three fights. three times to the same guy. In amateur, three fights. I don’t understand why. But now I do. The styles don’t match.”
https://twitter.com/manny_mma_/status/1595808411114946566?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1595808411114946566%7Ctwgr%5E8be4f0e8bf9720d1ee6015b62a148cd87fc2515d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloodyelbow.com%2F2022%2F11%2F28%2F23482956%2Falex-pereira-talks-ufc-281-israel-adesanya-win-ko-accept-defeate-kickboxing-mma-news
Giving an example of his career, Poatan wants Adesanya to accept the fact that he will never be able to defeat the Brazilian.
“The guy has stopped fighting. If I fought him again today, I think I’d lose again. Even though he’s done fighting, if I fought him, I would lose. If I fought him 10 times, I’ll lose. Adesanya needs to get that the same way Whittaker did. He just doesn’t accept it.”
