Israel Adesanya thinks Jan Blachowicz will take Alex Pereira down and "beat him up" in their upcoming fight.
Pereira moves up to light-heavyweight for the first time in his UFC career having lost his middleweight belt to Adesanya at UFC 287 last month. The Brazilian has previously competed at light-heavyweight during his kickboxing career and will now make his promotional debut at the weight class against the division's former champion Blachowicz at UFC 291 in July.
Adesanya came up short in his bid to become a two-weight UFC champion when he was beaten by Blachowicz in 2020. 'The Last Stylebender' predicts Blachowicz will deploy a similar game plan against Pereira as he did in their past fight, backing the Polish fighter to wear out Pereira on the ground.
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"I think Jan is going to take him down and just beat him up there," Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. "Jan will stand with him for a bit, but eventually just get him to the fence or try and take him down the way he took me down. I don't think he's going to shoot [for a takedown] so he's either going to get him to the fence."
Pereira takes confidence from his coach Glover Teixeira fighting Blachowicz in the past as the now-retired UFC veteran tapped him out to win the light-heavyweight belt in 2021. 'Poatan' wanted to face a top-five contender in his light-heavyweight debut in the hopes of securing himself a title shot at the weight class with a win.
"He is a dangerous guy, an experienced guy. A guy we know because of my training partner Glover Teixeira, who has fought him before. I'm sure training hard and together with Glover, he will pass on a lot of stuff to me like he is always doing. Everybody knows Blachowicz is a dangerous guy, an allrounder, but I think it's a good first fight at 205lb for me," Pereira said.
"When I say my first fight at light-heavyweight, people would have thought 'Oh it's against an easy opponent'. No, all of you know my story. I was middleweight champion, so for sure the UFC wanted to give me someone ranked in the top five. It wasn't a surprise, we were negotiating for a while and I was waiting for him."
