The son of Alex Pereira was clearly unhappy with the antics of Israel Adesanya after his father was defeated at UFC 287 over the weekend.
Pereira went into the fourth meeting with his rival having defeated him on three previous occasions. However, it was fourth time lucky for Adesanya, who regained the UFC middleweight championship in Miami on Saturday night.
It was the post-fight reactions by the new champion which caused the tears of Pereira junior. First, The Last Stylebender imitated a bow and arrow being shot at his rival, before pointing to someone in the crowd and falling to the floor.
That someone in the crowd was Pereira’s son Alessandro, who had done the same thing in the ring after Pereira beat Adesanya in a kickboxing match back in 2017. This shows that the new champion clearly never forgets.
What did Adesanya say about his post-fight celebrations?
Explaining his actions which drew the tears of Alessandro in his post-fight press conference, Adesanya said: “I’m petty bro. I remember the first time (Pereira) knocked me out in Brazil, and his son came into the ring and then started to lie dead next to me, and I’m like ‘you f****** little a******. I’ll whoop your a** if your dad don’t do it for you.’
“But then, yeah, I looked for his kid, and I pointed at him, and I saw him, and I was like, hey, hey, hey, [mimics falling to the floor] just to remind him.”
Video: Alex Pereira’s son’s reaction
Speaking on UFC 281 Embedded, Pereira junior explained his actions in Brazil: “I got into the ring with a bottle and was mimicking what my father did to that guy. I hit the plastic bottle on my head and fell to the ground.”
After seven years, Adesanya was still affected by this loss, especially the antics of Alessandro, and simply could not pass up the opportunity to get a little bit of revenge. His gestures were met with mixed reviews from fans, however.
One said: “Say what you want but bro needed this. He got everything off his chest even went after the kids too.”
Another, not so positive, response: “Taking revenge from a 13-year-old? What a man child.”
Later on, Adesanya played down talk of friction between him and the Pereira family, stating: “I saw [Pereira} backstage. We’re cool. He’s a great champion, he’s a warrior. His story, I mean that. I’m the antagonist of his story. He’s a f****** beast, coming from where he’s come from.
“The adversities he’s been through in his life to get to where he’s gotten now, and taking me out the way he has, it’s a f****** beautiful story for him. But like I said, tonight it’s not about his story, it’s about my story, which is history.”
