"It will be impossible for him not to engage" - Alex Pereira confident he will "hurt" Israel Adesanya, offers peek into strategy

Former Glory middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira is all set to drop his "stone hand" on middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya at UFC 281. The two fighters have a history going back to their days as Glory kickboxers, where Pereira defeated Adesanya with a left hook knockout, making him the only fighter to have ever knocked out 'The Last Stylebender'.

Despite an unchallenged reign as the middleweight champion, Alex Pereira is confident of dethroning Adesanya. In an interview with Super Lutas, 'Poatan' explained how he plans on beating the champion again:

“I can tell you that it will be impossible for him not to engage, if he’s within my reach I will hurt him. And five rounds…he won’t make it, five rounds? And I come close, you can see in the fights that I come close, I have a very good defense. He will want to attack or counterattack, but I can hurt him with my defense too.”

Pereira seems to be basing his strategy after carefully studying Izzy’s fights. He provided further insight into his strategy when he said:

“I saw in his fights that he kicks a lot and the guys don’t have the right time, the right time to block, you can hurt him with a block. The guy kicked, you blocked, maybe he won’t kick anymore. He’s got a big weapon and I can sort of eliminate it early on, I’ll be close to him, if he doesn’t hit me he’ll get beaten, and if he hits me he’ll get as tired as me.“

Check out the interview with english subtitles by Brazilian MMA below:

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Was Alex Pereira a better kickboxer compared to Israel Adesanya?

Before making their respective UFC debuts, both Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira found themselves on the Glory kickboxing roster. While the New Zealander has achieved a fantastic run as the middleweight champion in the UFC, Pereira has landed his first title shot at UFC 281 after only three fights.

But Alex Pereira’s Glory record paints the picture of a far superior fighter in comparison to Adesanya. While Izzy claimed only two wins and two losses, Pereira managed to stack up an impressive 12 wins and four losses, with eight wins via knockout.

What’s more is that during his time at the Singapore-based kickboxing promotion, 'Poatan' was a two-division champion initially at middleweight and then at light heavyweight. Clearly, Alex Pereria was a force to be reckoned with as a kickboxer, and is proving so as a mixed martial artist too.