Israel Adesanya thinks his former rival Alex Pereira isn’t in the right headspace coming into his second heavyweight fight at UFC 335 in December.
Pereira is set to face Sergei Pavlovich in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 12th. It’s a big fight for “Poatan” because it represents his last chance at heavyweight. If he loses, Pereira has made it clear he’ll leave the division and return to 205 pounds where he was a two-time champ.
“Everyone knows I’m not as heavy as those heavyweights,” Pereira recently
said during a Connect Cast interview. “I’m not going to stay there taking a beating with that disadvantage. I’d go back to my division, where I was already well adapted. It would be for the [light heavyweight] belt.”
That’s not a bad consolation prize at all should Pereira lose, but he’s setting himself up mentally for failure according to Israel Adesanya.
“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Adesanya said. “I saw a clip of Pereira saying if he loses to Pavlovich, he’s going back down to 205. I don’t like that. I don’t like that he’s putting that out there. Because what the f–k you mean, ‘’f I lose?’ I don’t know why he’s taking this fight.”
Some fighters need to create a situation in their minds where the idea of losing never even occurs to them. That may work for some, but Pereira has always been extremely pragmatic regarding his fights, admitting that he could lose in any one of them. The only difference now? Everyone else feels the same way this time after what happened against Ciryl Gane.
We’ll see how Alex Pereira fares at UFC 335. A loss isn’t the worst fate in the world to suffer, though. Falling right back into a light heavyweight title shot after daring to shoot for triple champ glory? There’s no bad path for “Poatan.”
