“Key was Glover Teixeira” – Daniel Cormier talks about the DEFINING MOMENT that helped Alex Pereira become the champ at UFC 281
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Glover Teixeira and Alex Pereira - Image Courtesy MMA Fighting
Alex Pereira faced former middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 281. Pereira had 2 wins over Adesanya inside the kickboxing ring, and he was very confident moving into this fight. Adesanya on the other hand was hell-bent on settling the score, and he gave Pereira a tough run for his money.
Adesanya was cruising away to a victory until the end of the 4th round. Before the final bell, Pereira’s corner clearly told him that he was losing the fight, and he needs to throw caution to the wind if he wants to become a champion. Pereira listened to their advice and finished Adesanya with a barrage of punches in round number 5.
Daniel Cormier was at the ringside to witness this monumental event, and he claims Glover Teixeira’s experience certainly helped Pereira pull off this grand upset. Talking about it on his YouTube channel, he said, “The key was Glover Teixeira and his team letting Alex Pereira know, very sternly, ‘If you want to be the champion, you’ve got five minutes. You’ve got to lay it all out there.’ And that’s exactly what he did.”
Also read – Watch the most DEPRESSING cage side reactions as Alex Pereira stops Israel Adesanya at UFC 281
Daniel Cormier reacts to people protesting that Alex Pereira vs Israel Adesanya was stopped early
While Adesanya was clearly out on his feet, he wasn’t dropped. Referee Marc Goddard stepped in and saved Adesanya from taking any necessary damage to the head. Many thought it was an early stoppage, and Adesanya too protested inside the octagon. However, he went back to his coaches, and they told him the fight was clearly over.
Adesanya respects them enough to not question their judgment, and DC too believes the fight was stopped at the right moment. Commenting on the same he said, “There are people guys, people in the know, who said, ‘I’m not sure I love the stoppage.’ Doesn’t matter. That was a great stoppage, because there’s nothing worse than being finished in a fight.”
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He added, “We’ve never seen Israel Adesanya with his hands down, taking shots like that. It would have only gotten worse. So I do love the stoppage. It was a just stoppage. It should have happened because it was only going to get worse.”
Pereira is surely enjoying the biggest win of his career right now, but he knows that Adesanya is definitely coming back for his title, and he’ll back come hungrier than ever, so ‘Poatan’ would have to work extra hard to keep the belt to himself.
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Suryansh Thakur
(1600 Articles Published)