UFC 281 is all about reclaiming the narrative for Israel Adesanya. All week, Adesanya has been trying to re-write history and claim that his kickboxing matches against Pereira were close and that fans were only watching the highlights as opposed to the whole thing.
But Adesanya’s efforts might’ve been savagely thwarted when ESPN played a cut of Pereira savaging him with strikes over an interview in which Adesanya claimed he was landing on Pereira.
“Why they do this man like that 😠lmao caught 2nd hand embarrassment.” – one fan wrote.
Another on-looker had a funny solution for the conundrum: “He should have pulled out his phone and showed Cormier the Jon Jones finishes, see how funny he thought that was.”
Cormier once again took the brunt of criticism despite the fact that he likely had no hand in making these highlights “Cormier was definitely trying to make the most of an awkward situation. He wasn’t just laughing at Izzy.”
A different fan called out Adesanya for his spin-doctor act saying:
“‘This that tiktok era, people will believe whatever they see’, – Broski you got knocked out”
Fans on reddit even went one step further and accused the UFC of skewering all of media coverage this week:
“There’s been this same undertone from all the media and marketing for this fight. Just feels like they subtly want Alex to win and everything the UFC puts out is ever so slightly tilted for Alex.”
“I mean anyone who has watched the full fight will know they did Izzy dirty with those edited highlights.
But it’s still hilarious just for Izzy’s reaction.” a different fan responded.
The biggest issue appears to be the fact that Adesanya explicitly referenced the first bout between the two while the highlights are from the 2nd – the one where Adesanya was viciously KO-ed.