Alex Pereira claims he left Israel Adesanya “crying outside” after knocking out ‘Stylebender’ in their 2017 rematch.

Pereira (4-1 MMA) and Adesanya (21-1 MMA) have a storied history having collided twice under the GLORY kickboxing banner. The Brazilian emerged victorious in both of those matchups, the second of which came via a nasty knockout (left hook).

According to the former GLORY middleweight and light heavyweight champion in Alex Pereira, the always “arrogant” Israel Adesanya was seen outside the arena streaming tears following the crushing defeat.

“I don’t know if it is just with his friends, right? With the people close to him, (where) he’s that arrogant guy, that annoying guy. Because every time I met the guy, it was all that arrogance, that ego, he was always like that.” Pereira said in an interview with Marcelo Alonso of the PVT channel (Portal Vale Tudo). “Since our first fight in China, he was a guy who pissed me off a lot, from the weigh-in to the fight. Even losing, when there was the rematch here in Brazil he made a post that I don’t really remember, but it was something like ‘I’ll have to beat Pereira in his backyard and then run out of the favela’. It was something like that, right?’ [via translation]”

Alex Pereira continued (h/t SportsKeeda):

“I only saw him at the weigh-in and the fight. After the fight I saw him crying outside in Ibirapuera. Sitting on a low wall with his trainer – that’s it.”

Pereira made his highly anticipated Octagon debut at November’s UFC 268 event, where he scored a sensational knockout victory over Andreas Michailidis (see that here).

‘Po Atan’, 34, is now set to take on Bruno Silva in his sophomore UFC appearance on March 12, 2022.

If Alex Pereira can defeat Silva this coming Spring, he will likely be just one or two wins away from earning a trilogy fight with his longtime rival in Israel Adesanya – the UFC’s reigning middleweight champion.