Israel Adesanya Claims Redemption And Inspires With Post-Fight Speech After KOing Alex Pereira at UFC 287

Photo: Instagram/ Israel Adesanya 

Israel Adesanya's victory over Alex Pereira at UFC 287 has stunned the MMA world, as he defeated his personal nemesis who had beaten him twice in their kickboxing careers and once with a fifth-round shocker at UFC 281.

Adesanya's win against Pereira was likely the sweetest victory of his career, and he celebrated by mimicking Pereira's arrow celebration, firing multiple imaginary arrows into his fallen opponent, and unleashing a scream.

The former UFC middleweight champion, once again became the current UFC middleweight champion and became the first two-time middleweight champion in UFC history, and tied his idol Anderson Silva for the most knockouts in UFC middleweight history with 13.

Photo: Instagram/Israel Adesanya 

Adesanya had defended his title against five different challengers and already had a track to the UFC Hall of Fame, but found greatness once again in the second round.

Pereira seemed to break through Adesanya's defenses, pushing up "The Last Stylebender" against the cage, but two rights in response from Adesanya knocked the Brazilian out cold.

Adesanya now holds a 24-2 career record, with his only losses to Pereira and then-UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.

In his post-fight ESPN interview, Adesanya delivered one of the most charismatic and inspiring speeches you will hear from an athlete.

As always happens after a pivotal MMA matchup, the conversation soon turned to what comes next for Adesanya.

There is a pretty natural next step: a trilogy fight with Pereira, though who knows if the UFC wants to throw the former champ back in at this point in his career. Some fighters still wanted to see it.

However, UFC president Dana White said after the fight that he expects Pereira to move up to light heavyweight, as he has always been a very large middleweight.

Other middleweights are trying to figure out their place in line, including Khamzat Chimaev, the mercurial sensation who recently moved up to middleweight after mowing through some serious welterweight names, immediately demanded a fight.

There were also two of Adesanya's past opponents, former middlweight champ Robert Whittaker and Marvin Vettori.

Adesanya has beaten each of them twice, but he's now beaten pretty much every established middleweight contender at this point.

Out of left field came Blachowicz, who offered Adesanya a rematch at middleweight this time.

Blachowicz is coming off a bizarre draw against Magomed Ankalaev to reclaim his light heavyweight belt, which many believed should have been a win for Ankalaev.

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Source: Yahoo Sports