UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya knocked out his nemesis Alex Pereira at UFC 287 last month. Both men were boarding the same flight to Los Angeles today.
Airport security in Australia would have been relieved today as a meeting between Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira ended (surprisingly) without violence. As we’ve seen on multiple occasions before, when Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira are in close proximity to one another, there is a tendency for one of them to get knocked out. Luckily, this time around, they were fist-bumping instead of trying to repeatedly punch each other in the head.
It’s not the only time this week that both men have been within reach of each other as ‘Poatan’ and ‘Stylebender’ were both in attendance at the Joseph Parker and Nikita Tszyu fight last weekend, where they were seen meeting the heavyweight boxing superstar, Tyson Fury.
Pereira uploaded footage of the airport encounter to his Instagram story earlier today, which showed Adesanya jokingly hide his face from the camera,before embracing his rival. Moments later, Adesanya uploaded a video to his Instagram with the caption, ‘My life is a video game.’ Pereira is seen at the back of the line, flexing his muscles.
The UFC Featherweight Champion, Alexander Volkanovski, can be seen in the background of Adesanya’s footage, and he would have been relieved to see tensions not boil over due to the recent post-fight antics between the pair. Upon knocking out Alex Pereira at UFC 287, Adesanya mocked his opponent’s son, who was watching cage side, in a replication of the in-ring celebration mocking ‘The Last Stylebender’ following his knockout loss to Pereira in their kickboxing match.
Unfortunately, a rematch between Adesanya and Pereira is unlikely to happen any time soon as ‘Poatan’ is moving up in weight class to challenge Jan Błachowicz in the co-main event of a stacked card at UFC 291 in Salt Lake City this July 30, with Adesanya’s next bout being a title defence of his middleweight crown, which will likely be against the winner of the Robert Whittaker vs. Dricus du Plessis bout at UFC 290. With the back-and-forth between Adesanya and Pereira following their recent fight in April, a rematch down the road is not out of the question. It would be the fifth bout between the pair in total, with three of them being in the UFC.
Today’s chance encounter between the pair at the airport was jovial on the ground, and the air hostess(es) will be hoping for much of the same at thirty-seven thousand feet.
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