UFC 281: Alex Pereira wins middleweight title with third victory over Israel Adesanya
Alex Pereira arrives for a middleweight bout against Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
Israel Adesanya heard all week long how his opponent beat him twice in their kickboxing days, including a knockout.
Adesanya owned the knockout loss every time he was asked about it. But on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden at UFC 281, it was Alex Pereira who now has three victories over Adesanya, as well as ownership of the middleweight title.
Pereira (7-1) needed a finish in the fifth round, and he delivered. He landed several good uppercuts that stunned Adesanya (23-2). He followed up with a flurry of more strikes that sent Adesanya stumbling and led to referee Marc Goddard stopping the bout at the 2:01 mark.
Adesanya won the first round on the strength of a pair of strikes in the final seconds that wobbled Pereira, but Pereira came back to take the second round. Adesanya showed why he was a five-time defending champion as he took control of rounds three and four with his clinch work and ground strikes.
Champ once more
Zhang Weili said she feared nothing women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza could present to her in the cage. She fought that way en route to a second-round submission via rear naked choke to reclaim her title.
Zhang and Esparza put on a frenetic pace in the first round. But Zhang (23-3) came out ahead of Esparza (19-7) in just about every exchange. When the fight went to the ground again early in the second round, Zhang got control of Esparza’s back and sank in the submission at the 1:05 mark.
Delivery confirmation
Once it became official that Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler would share an octagon, everyone expected a fight destined to live on in people’s memories and compilation videos for years.
Poirier and Chandler delivered on those expectations. After a wild first round in which there were 74 total significant strikes landed, Poirier eventually submitted Chandler in the third round.
“Who ain’t got jiujitsu?” Poirier joked after the fight.
Earlier in the round, Chandler had picked up Poirier to go for the slam, but Poirier was able to wiggle free from any damage on the way down. After a scramble wound up on Chandler’s back. He eventually was able to get a body triangle on Chandler, sink in the rear naked choke at the 2:00 mark.
“He was a little bit more durable than I thought he was going to be,” said Poirier (29-7). “I thought if I hurt him, I was going to put him away.”
They both were durable. They both hurt each other. And they both almost finished each other in the first round.
“I couldn’t see when he was throwing,” Poirier said of the damage Chandler (23-8) inflicted in the first round. “Good thing he throws looping. If he threw straight, he probably would have got me outta there.”
Frankie’s farewell
Frankie Edgar sat on a stool in the middle of the cage in the long embrace of Chris Gutierrez, the man who had just sent him to the canvas with a flying knee in his farewell fight.
The former lightweight champion didn’t envision his career ending this way, staring up at the ceiling of Madison Square Garden.
“I love this sport,” said Edgar, 41. “Sometimes this sport is a [expletive]. I’ve got my family. That’s all that matters.”
The finishing move came at the 2:06 mark. The crowd had just started its first “Let’s go, Frankie!” chant as he moved forward. Edgar (24-11-1) dropped his head under the outstretched arms of Gutierrez (19-4-2). That’s when Gutierrez delivered the left knee and brought to an end the career of one of the most respected fighters in the UFC’s 29-year history.
A kick in the gut
Claudio Puelles kept attempting to attack Dan Hooker’s legs throughout the fight, but ultimately it was Hooker’s legs attacking Puelles that decided the lightweight fight. Hooker landed three kicks to the body in the second round, each of them hurting Puelles as he took the kick, dropped to the octagon floor and tried to use it to set up a ground attack. But the third kick sealed the TKO win for Hooker as referee Keith Peterson stopped the bout at the 4:06 mark.
Quick jabs
Dominick Reyes, a former Stony Brook University football player, lost by knockout to Ryan Spann in the first round . . . UFC 281 extended the promotion’s streak to 27 consecutive sold-out events. The live gate was anticipated to be in the neighborhood of $10 million . . . New Jersey flyweight Erin Blanchfield outstruck Molly McCann, 111-6, en route to her first-round submission win . . . Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski will challenge lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at UFC 284 next February in Australia.
Mark La Monica is a deputy sports editor at Newsday. He also covers mixed martial arts.
