UFC 287 Beforemath: How Adesanya Can Break the Pereira Curse

What a treat we have on our hands this weekend. UFC 287 features a fourth fight across two disciplines between Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya. Officially billed as “Pereira vs. Adesanya 2,” we would be remiss if we did not take into account the two kickboxing matches the two had before meeting in MMA. The burning question: Can Adesanya win back the middleweight title? Today we will postulate on just that with this issue of UFC 287 Beforemath.

Pereira: Be the King

Pereira is Adesanya’s sleep paralysis demon. He haunts Adesanya late at night in his traditional Pataxó garb standing over Adesanya’s bed menacingly. Adesanya can’t run. He can’t hide. All he sees is “Poatan.”

Pereira had a fantastic game plan at UFC 281 against an Adesanya who was several years further removed from pure kickboxing than himself. He implemented a kick-heavy attack that slowed Adesanya down and made his movement difficult. This led to the eventual knockout and title capture. The low kick will be important for Pereira again. If he can take away southpaw or orthodox from Adesanya, like Merab Dvalishvili did against Petr Yan, he can force all of the offense from Adesanya to come from his preferred side. It will also slow down Adesanya and give him that opportunity to land the big blow once again. But Pereira cannot count on Adesanya not addressing this issue from the first fight. He will have to set it up to where he can find the low kick in transitions.

To see an example of how Pereira can find low kicks in transitions, we are going to another heavy hitter in the UFC’s middleweight division: Jared Cannonier. In figure 1, (1) we see Cannonier pushing Sean Strickland back to the fence, much like Pereira did in the first Adesanya fight. To get Strickland to react, (2) Cannonier dips to the left and gets Strickland thinking to exit to his left, Cannonier’s right. To cover himself, Strickland fires a jab out and exits to Cannonier’s right. Cannonier activates his trap card and (3) fires the right leg low kick and lands on Strickland. Pereira can utilize this to land some easier calf kicks to get that early damage on Adesanya and his legs to slow him down and find that big shot he is looking for.

Cutting off the cage was also integral for Pereira in capturing the belt. Adesanya is a slippery opponent and Pereira had success against the cage and accumulating damage to finally get the finish. Catching Adesanya on the exit with the kick as we discussed in the diagram above will be a help, but more helpful was when Pereira discovered straight punching against a cage in an MMA match was much effective than punching while his opponents were against the ropes in a kickboxing match.

In their kickboxing matches, (1) Adesanya would lean against the ropes and make Pereira miss. The forgiveness of the ropes allowed Adesanya to avoid some nasty blows. In their MMA match, (2) Pereira discovered this isn’t the case against the fence. He started utilizing the jab when Adesanya couldn’t back up and lean out of the cage. This let Pereira start to land blows and look for bigger shots like the uppercut and that beautiful left hook.

All in all, the burden is on Pereira to show that the first three fights weren’t a fluke, which is a funny thing to say. As the old saying goes: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Do not be the fool, Pereira can win this fight again.

Adesanya: This is MMA, Fight Like It

Yes, Adesanya is a kickboxer at heart. It’s where he cut his chops. But in the first mixed martial arts match with Pereira, he was largely drawn into a kickboxing match. This played into the hands of Pereira and led to once again being finished and losing his middleweight title. Adesanya has shown some slickness on the ground, namely in the Kelvin Gastelum fight, and should look to use his head start on grappling to make Pereira’s night miserable.

In the second round, Adesanya was able to take down Pereira despite it being the only full round he lost. Adesanya needs to make a good faith effort to grapple with Pereira. Not every takedown has to be sincere. The key is to make Pereira think “takedown” and slow down his relentless onslaught.

Adesanya is a very complicated fighter when it comes to stand-up. The subtle use of feints from all limbs, footwork and stance switching, are what makes him so complicated. In the figure above, we see that complexity in the second kickboxing fight. Starting the sequence (1) Adesanya is in the orthodox stance (left hand/foot forward). The subtle trickery starts early on as (2) Adesanya has his right hand leading and prepares for the switch. Knowing the left hook is coming, (3) Adesanya uses the stretched arm to crowd the lane and allow for him to step his lead foot back into southpaw.

Shortly after, (4) Adesanya draws the left hook out from Pereira. Pereira drops his hand and Adesanya can see it coming. He will (5) retract his hand and once again step back, this time back to orthodox. With his left hand retracted and loaded up and now in orthodox, the right hand is the power hand again. (5) Pereira loads up the left hook but Adesanya knows that straight punches beat looping punches every time and (6) fires a right cross that lands clean. It is this complexity that made Adesanya such a fun striker coming up. In the first Pereira MMA fight, Adesanya was more reserved, opting to fight with the hands instead of the footwork except against the cage. I’d like to see more of this type of stuff from Adesanya, especially with the threat of the takedown almost nonexistent.

One of the Achilles’ heels (pun intended) for Adesanya in the last fight was the low calf kick. Pereira used the calf kick to hurt the mobility of Adesanya to make him easier to hit. Adesanya can take a couple approaches to mitigate this: crowd the kicker or check the kicks.

via GIPHY

Checking the low kick involves picking the leg up to make the foot hit a harder part of the leg and damaging the foot of the attacker, as opposed to taking it on the soft part of the leg. But that is not the type of kick Pereira deploys for the most part. Instead of kicking the leg or the thigh, Pereira kicks the calf. Adesanya will need to look at retracting the leg in full to make Pereira miss. As seen in the GIF above, when the kick completely misses, the follow through puts the kicking fighter out of position. Doing this will not only minimize damage but also will open up counters for Adesanya to blitz and land on Pereira.

Next thing I would like to see from Adesanya is some body work. Pereira cuts a lot of weight. Putting in some work to the body will be important to accentuate the gas tank discrepancy between the two as the fight goes on.

With the threat of the left hook ever-present, Adesanya will have to mind which punch he goes to the body with. If he is in orthodox stance, with his left hand and foot forward, it’s the jab he will want to go to. This will allow Adesanya to keep his right hand up to block the left hook from Pereira. But Adesanya is constantly switching stances and can go to the body in southpaw as well. That means in southpaw, Adesanya will want to throw the left cross at the body of Pereira instead of the jab. Right hand up, first and foremost.

The fence was another issue for Adesanya in the third fight. Adesanya was backed up and, for the most part, escaped danger quite well. That is, until he didn’t. Pereira worked out that the fence is his best friend and that eventually, he would catch Adesanya slipping there. He did and it cost Adesanya the belt. At UFC 287, Adesanya should stay off the fence by any means necessary.

Last thing I would like to discuss is the offense from Adesanya. He needs to hurt Pereira, the bigger and the heavier hitter. Without that, Pereira will just come forward like a terminator looking for the kill. In the first fight, at the end of the first round, Adesanya managed to hurt Pereira with a simple hand trap.

Lastly, the trickery on the hands will be important for Adesanya to get and retain respect from Pereira through the duration of the fight. In the first fight, Adesanya managed to ding Pereira at the very end of the first round. Adesanya (1) stuck a long jab in the face of Pereira and kept it there. This prompted Pereira to lower that left hand and try to fire the left hook over the top. But we can see that Adesanya planned for this and (2) pulled that lowered left down and inhibited the path of the left even more making a path for the (3) right cross to come through. It would (4) land and put Pereira on wobbly legs.

Adesanya tried this tactic multiple times in the fight but only had success the first time. Pereira sussed it out and started hand fighting after being cracked the first time. Adesanya didn’t try to be sneaky about it. He didn’t throw the double jab to make Pereira think it could be something else. He left his craftiness at what it seemed on the surface. To ding Pereira like this again, Adesanya will need more hand entrapments to open up these pathways besides this one.

The path for Adesanya is real and very clear. A win would set up an insane fifth meeting between the two, something I hope happens. From a technical standpoint, this matchup is cream of the crop. But should Adesanya drop a fourth fight, there is nothing the anime lords can do, Adesanya will not get a title shot if Pereira is still king. Write his name in the Death Note, he may. But with that insane boom stick Pereira possesses, it might not matter.