Israel Adesanya was a big favorite coming into UFC 281 despite having lost to Pereira twice in kickboxing.
Adesanya was comfortably in the lead, when Pereira pulled a surprising comeback, backed Adesanya into the fence and wobbled him enough to convince ref Marc Goddard to stop the event.
In the immediate reaction Adesanya begrudged the referee for calling it – prematurely in his opinion. Adesanya also blamed the fact he seemed unstable on his feet on his peroneal nerve getting compromised.
“He hit my peroneal nerve so that’s why my footwork was compromised. ‘Cause I was wondering, even when I tripped and did the backwards roll, I had to do a roly-poly ’cause I was like, ‘Sh*t!’ I just tripped over and it’s not like me, so kudos to him for investing in those calf kicks. ‘Cause yeah, it cost me.”
Later Adesanya reiterated that while he believes the stoppage was premature both his coach and manager felt it was adequate so he’s not complaining about it.
“In the moment, yes. But I think I trust my coaches and my manager Ash, when they said it was a good stoppage.”
Alex Pereira urged Adesanya to ‘stop trying to spin the narrative’ yesterday in his own posting.
“Adesanya stop making excuses saying that the referee stopped the fight early… you have to thank him for saving your life. The way you were with your head down looking at the ground, I only needed one or two more hits to connect a good knee to your face so we wouldn’t know the outcome.
As I said at that point in the video, you were a great opponent and I respect you for that.
Assume the mistakes along with your team without taking away my merits.
You will have one more chance!
You’re next!”
Adesanya just shared a video of himself and teammates reacting to UFC 281 – similar to what they do for other cards.
Adesanya reacts to his loss to Alex Pereira in #UFC281 pic.twitter.com/Uy0ybL4mFA
— calfkicker (@calfkickercom) November 19, 2022
Regardless of what Pereira’s saying, Adesanya is planning to put his health first. He reportedly plans to undergo a chest surgery in addition to dealing with some knee issues that were close to causing him to pull out of UFC 281.
“I mean, I don’t disclose everything. I’ve had some stuff that, you know, some medical stuff that I’ve just put on the back burner. It was stuff that people make fun of me for. “
“I mean, yeah, I just got to look after myself because my health comes first. Even think about Chadwick Boseman when everyone was making fun of him.”