His only career loss before this was in a light heavyweight title fight last year against Jan Blachowicz. Pereira, 35, is a former Glory Kickboxing middleweight and light heavyweight champion.Īdesanya (23-2) had won three straight fights and was undefeated at middleweight coming into this bout. The Brazilian slugger has six KO/TKOs in seven career MMA victories and is 4-0 in the UFC. Pereira (7-1) knocked out Sean Strickland in the first round at UFC 276 in July to earn the title shot. Referee Marc Goddard stepped in to stop it after a flurry of left hooks and right hands. Adesanya was the champion since 2019.Īdesanya had been winning the fight until the stoppage victory, Pereira firing a barrage of punches with Adesanya hurt against the cage.

With the victory, Pereira won the UFC middleweight title in just his fourth fight with the promotion. Pereira, the only man to ever knock out Adesanya, stopped him again via TKO at 2:01 of the fifth and final round Saturday night in the main event of UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden. Israel Adesanya (c) (23-2, 12-2 UFC) by TKO ( Watch this fight on ESPN+)Īlex Pereira had Israel Adesanya's number in kickboxing. UFC 281 results Middleweight championship: Alex Pereira (7-1, 4-0 UFC) def. And when he turned a Chandler takedown attempt into his advantage of the canvas, he was able to work his way to the finish. Poirier came out for the final round with poise, knowing he had more left in the tank than Chandler. Had the round been 5 minutes and 10 seconds long, Chandler likely would not have made it to the horn.īut he did, and early in the second, despite breathing heavily, Chandler scored a takedown and controlled the fight on the canvas for nearly all of those five minutes. And eventually, Chandler did connect, and his two takedowns in the opening round put him in position to beat up his opponent on the canvas.īut Poirier eventually got up, and he badly hurt a very tired Chandler late in the round.

He was maintaining distance to avoid damage but offering little in return. The sixth-ranked Chandler took control from the start, aggressively moving in on Poirier with a nonstop flurry of wild punches. 4 in the ESPN rankings at 155 pounds, looked like the one who was going to get finished. For much of the fight, Poirier, who is No. Poirier was the winner, finishing with a rear-naked choke 2 minutes into Round 3.

NEW YORK - Dustin Poirier and Michael Chandler put on the type of wildly entertaining fight that fans have come to expect from each of them, and in doing so on the star-studded main card of UFC 281 on Saturday night, they helped sort out the lightweight top 10.

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