Israel Adesanya mocked Alex Pereira's crying son after knocking out his long-time rival at the fourth time of asking at UFC 287 on Saturday night at.
The dominant middleweight had fought Pereira three times previously; twice in the kickboxing ring and once in the octagon, with the Brazilian winning each of their meetings, twice by knockout. Following their second fight, when his son was very young, Pereira's youngest performed a joking gesture towards Adesanya as he got up from the canvas after being attended to by medics.
And over six years later, the fighter remembered the gesture and refused to let it go in his post-fight celebration. Adesanya pointed out Pereira's son and recreated the gesture, flopping to the ground and playing dead like the Brazilian's son had done following their 2017 bout.
“I’m petty bro," Adesanya admitted during an emotional press conference, admitting that the gesture had played on his mind. "I remember the first time he knocked me out in Brazil his son came into the ring and started to get next to me. I'm like 'you f***ing little a**hole, I'll whoop your a** if your dad won't do it for you.
"I looked for his kid and I pointed at him and I saw him. I was like 'hey, hey hey,' just to remind him. I saw him [Pereira] backstage and we're cool. He's a great champion, he's a warrior and his story - I mean that. I'm the antagonist in his story, he's a f***ing beast coming from where he's come from and the adversity he's faced in his life to get to where he is."
Adesanya had arguably lost very few rounds against Pereira during their three fights, with their first going to a very controversial judges' decision. He had been dominating both of their fights in kickboxing and MMA that ended in knockouts, and despite taking three losses was a bookies' favourite heading into Saturday night.
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He had never lost at middleweight in the octagon prior to his first UFC bout with Pereira, which saw the Brazilian pick up MMA's top prize within just eight bouts in the sport. The pair's feud appears now to be put to bed with the score at 3-1 to the former champion, who Adesanya feels should now move to light-heavyweight and alleviate the monstrous cut from 220lb that he makes to 185lb.
"He should go cause problems at 205," Adesanya continued. "Good luck to everybody else because he's a motherf***er to deal with... With Poatan [Pereira's nickname], he's always going to be a champion. A lot of people would try and like write me off and go 'oh you're not a champ any more', but they still call me champ.
"I'm still the champion, I still carry myself as a champion. Kamaru Usman, Francis Ngannou, they're still champions, they're always going to be champions no matter what. Once a champion, always a champion."
