Dustin Jacoby Comments on Alex Pereira's 'Easy Road' to Potential Title Shot Against Israel Adesanya

Like many mixed martial arts fighters coming from a kickboxing background, Dustin Jacoby is living a great moment. As an MMA fighter, Jacoby (17-5-1, 5-2-1 UFC) hasn’t sampled the sour taste of defeat since January 2015, when he tapped to a rear-naked choke by John Salter at Bellator 132. Since then, the former Cage Fury Fighting Championships titleholder has gone unbeaten in eight straight outings, including a split draw with Ion Cutelaba at UFC on ESPN 23 in May 2021. “The Hanyak” will look to extend that streak when he locks horns with Da Un Jung on the preliminary card of the upcoming UFC on ABC 3 on July 16.

Jacoby features an enviable combat sports résumé, having competed across multiple disciplines. The Factory X representative is a Glory kickboxing veteran and locked horns with current UFC middleweight contestant and former Glory two-division titleholder Alex Pereira in the squared circle in March 2014, when Jacoby lost to “Poatan” via first-round knockout. When asked about the potential championship clash between Pereira and Israel Adesanya — who also faced one another in kickboxing — Jacoby commented on Pereira’s fast track to a title shot only three fights after signing with the UFC.

“I'm really looking forward to that fight with [Adesanya] and Pereira,” he said. “It’s an opportunity for [Adesanya] to write a couple of wrongs and an opportunity for the best striker in the world to go prove that he can be an MMA champion, which is just crazy to me. Everybody's road is different. I don't wanna say he had an easy road, but to be able to go in and fight a guy like Sean Strickland [ranked] No. 4, who's just gonna stand up with you…yeah, it really plays to his favor. Now, he gets to fight for the world title, when I do believe there's so many guys in that weight class that would fight him smarter and give him a much more difficult fight. At the same time, the guy is, in my opinion, the best striker in the world, one of, for sure, if not the best striker in the world, and that fight's gonna be awesome.”

(00:00) Intro
(00:50) Training with Cody Brundage
(02:05) Commenting on Alex Pereira’s victory over Sean Strickland
(03:24) The difference between kickboxing and MMA gloves
(04:29) MMA gloves and eye-poking
(05:55) Israel Adesanya’s evolution
(07:30) His thoughts on Pereira's road to his potential title shot
(08:11) Predicting Adesanya vs. Pereira
(08:50) Facing Jung
(10:08) Dealing with some injuries in the fight with Oleksiejczuk
(11:10) Walking out to “Running Down a Dream”
(11:41) Acknowledgements
(12:12) Outro