UFC 281 packed on quite a punch. In the fall out from the event two new champions were crowned and Dustin Poirier secured his spot atop of UFC lightweight division.
And while finishes usually draw out elated reactions from the commentary team and the crowd, the finish of UFC 281 had the opposite reaction.
One fan dubbed it the “most depressing cage side reaction video ever “.
https://twitter.com/oocmma/status/1591677696450658304?s=46&t=Nm2TAWWdxx1eLiCH4DOAyQ
In the video we can see a number of UFC aces in disbelief over Mark Goddard’s choice to end the bout and relieve Adesanya of his title after getting hurt in Round 5 while he was ahead 3 rounds to 1.
Kevin Holland and Leon Edwards seem in particular stricken and in disbelief.
While neither Dana White nor Adesanya’s team question the stoppage the now former champ is regretful about how his reign ended wishing that there was a referee to allow him to ‘go out on his shield’.
White wouldn’t count out an immediate rematch for Pereira but it’s unclear at this point what’s next.
Adesanya is on the record saying he wants to take care of lingering medical issues and issues behind the scene and would prefer to fix those and only then come back in the cage.
Pereira has a number of horrible matchups ahead – while he was an ideal opponent for tricky Adesanya, he’s no match for tactical wrestlers such as Robert Whittaker or Khamzat Chimaev (who already expressed a desire to move up and face him).
“I don’t know if you guys have headphones over on your side, but the corner in Pereira’s corner that round, it was like straight out of a movie. I want to hear what the corner works going to be. So I put the headphones on and one of his trainers, I don’t know who it was, was like, You’re losing this f**king fight.”
“You need to knock him out in this round. You have to move forward. You have to throw punches and punches. You have to throw combinations. Let your f**king hands go. You’re going to be a world champion in 5 minutes. And then he gets up and goes out there. And it was there was seriously straight out of the movie.”
This is especially funny because that person was UFC’s former Light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira.
White reiterated: “Yeah, I didn’t have a problem with the stoppage. You just said it now. I don’t know. I mean, he was hurt. He obviously wasn’t out”
HE also confirmed UFC thinks highly of Adesanya and didn’t discount the chances of a rematch.