UFC 281 Beforemath: Livin’ in a Strikers Paradise

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UFC 281 on Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York is a pro wrestling fan’s wet dream. On one side, we have one of the greatest middleweight champions of all-time and a pound-for-pound great in Israel Adesanya. On the other stands his nemesis from another discipline and the man who had him in need of oxygen after a knockout during their kickboxing days: Alex Pereira. Like the boogeyman haunting his dreams, Pereira followed Adesanya from kickboxing to mixed martial arts to torment his lost soul again. Maybe I embellished a bit there, but the bones of the story remain true. So, for the first time on Sherdog, allow me to introduce you to Beforemath: my weekly preview column where we look at some technical aspects of a match. Let us begin:

TALE OF THE TAPE

UFC 281 brings us a high-profile matchup between some of the best strikers we’ve seen in the promotion. However, the experience difference between the two men is stark. Adesanya has gone from new kid on the block/fan favorite to a veteran of the sport fans want to see fall. Since joining the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Adesanya has one loss: a half-hearted attempt to move to light heavyweight, where then-champion Jan Blachowicz outgrappled him to a win. However, Adesanya’s victories are quite impressive. He owns two wins over middleweight darling Robert Whittaker, two over the ever-angry Marvin Vettori and others against Yoel Romero, Anderson Silva and Paulo Costa. In fact, Adesanya has so many wins at the top of the weight class that he has fans calling middleweight a weak division and asking whether or not anyone can make 185 pounds exciting again. Enter Pereira. While Adesanya has amassed an impressive 23-1 record in mixed martial arts, Pereira’s experience is much different. He’s 6-1 and managed to cherry pick his way to a title shot. Pereira’s path to the top reads as follows: Andreas Michailidis, Bruno Silva and Sean Strickland. That’s it. Strickland was a handpicked opponent who throws ugly jabs and claimed that Pereira’s striking sucked. He got knocked out inside one round. As the saying goes, styles make fights and Adesanya-Pereira is very stylish and very cool, and no one is certain about what will happen.

BE CRAFTY, MY FRIEND

Pereira has made a career out of his knockout of Adesanya in kickboxing. It’s the sole reason he’s fighting for the title so soon, though that doesn’t make the matchup any less compelling. There are some intangibles that we need to point out about Pereira going into the UFC 281 main event: mainly the time removed from kickboxing. Adesanya’s last official kickboxing bout was that knockout loss to Pereira way back in 2017. Meanwhile, Pereira’s last fight outside of MMA came against Artem Vakhitov in Glory in 2021. Should this fight devolve into a kickboxing match, there’s a possibility that Pereira has the advantage in that Adesanya is no longer a kickboxer. With that said, Adesanya was preparing to be a mixed martial artist at the same time he was kickboxing. It’s even more likely that the style of kickboxing Adesanya adapted to use in MMA is still razor-sharp, meaning this could be a big ole nothing burger. However, I do want to talk about what Pereira can do to dethrone Adesanya. With Pereira’s best and most notorious weapon being the left hook, the question centers on how lands it on an opponent who has good head movement and distance management.

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When compared to Adesanya, Strickland’s striking is rudimentary at best. Yet the setup still holds merit. The Strickland knockout is what got Pereira to the big dance. Strickland made it a bad habit to reach for Pereira’s jab Pereira and paid dearly for it. In Diagram 1 above, we see the simple tactics Pereira used to set up his left hook. (1) Multiple times in the fight, Pereira changed levels and threw to Strickland’s body. Every time, Strickland reached down and tried to slap the jab away. This was Pereira conditioning Strickland. It was the level change for the jab to the body that Pereira was getting Strickland to actually bite on. (2) In the finishing combination, Pereira dips down low as if he’s going to the body once more. Strickland takes the bait and slaps the non-existent jab away. (3) We can see in the next frame that Strickland has voluntarily lowered his guard and that Pereira has started the left hook. The lowering of the guard has created the lane for the hook to come through and (4) it does so with disastrous consequences for Strickland.

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Adesanya isn’t going to fall for the simple setup Pereira used against Strickland. The Brazilian is going to have to be more crafty and less obvious about it. When studying Adesanya, we see quick hands, stance switches and good head movement. These are all nightmares for Pereira. A fighter like Adesanya—a counterpuncher with squirrely footwork—is always on the move and a hard with which to connect. One area is open that nobody except for Whittaker has attacked. Leg kicks were what put Whittaker within winning distance in their rematch. Pereira should go to the leg kick to set up those power shots. When fighting a counterfighter, the legs are always the last thing to leave an exchange. Pereira can end many of his combos with a low kick, punish Adesanya’s mobility and set up his hook. To set up that left hook, Pereira needs to look to land the low kick. Knowing the legs will be the last thing there, Pereira can smash them; and when the leg returns, the left hook is loaded with the hips to deliver the most power. Adesanya will absolutely keep his guard high, but with four-ounce gloves, that’s even more difficult. To counter this, Pereira needs to mix in the odd straight off the low kick to bring Adesanya’s guard forward to open up the side door. Speaking of the cross, Pereira can use the low kick threat to land, as well. Adesanya isn’t a master low kick checker. He does eat those shots. While Adesanya is a master of the feints, Pereira can also pull some out of his bag of tricks.

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Throwing the low kick could also condition Adesanya, much like Pereira did with Strickland, albeit with more layers. In the second diagram, we see Geoff Neal dominating Vicente Luque. Neal conditioned Luque with the low kick by repeatedly smashing him with the strike. (1) At the start of the exchange, Neal has space to step in on Luque. As he steps in (2) Neal twists his hip and knee to show a low kick. This draws out the jab from Luque who wants to catch Neal on one leg. (3) As Luque throws the jab, Neal plays the joker; he knows it’s coming. He slips the jab to the outside and lands the right cross straight up the center. If Pereira can fire in the low kick and land somewhat consistently, it opens up a host of options through which he can land that booming shot that has put so many of kickboxing’s greats away, Adesanya included. All this is easier said than done because we have the most technically sound middleweight striker in UFC history standing in front of him.

DISCIPLINE IS DESTINY

The perfection of Adesanya’s middleweight run has been offset somewhat by his fall from grace with fans. That doesn’t make what he has done any less spectacular. His six title defenses since capturing the title have had their highs and lows. Adesanya is a tricky fighter to analyze before a fight and an absolute pleasure afterwards to do so. There’s the possibility that he puts on a no-hitter and doesn’t allow Pereira any ground to gain, meaning we get another Jared Cannonier fight. God help us if so. However, there’s also the chance he produces another Costa moment and absolutely dismantles the man in front of him. That’s what makes him tantalizing as a fighter.

Before we get into the striking aspects of this matchup from Adesanya’s side of the cage, I want to address his grappling. I believe there’s a real possibility that Adesanya takes down Pereira as a teaching moment. Don’t think of it as desperation but more of a boxer stepping foot into an MMA gym for the first time and running into a Division I wrestler. This isn’t kickboxing; it’s mixed martial arts. While I would like to dive into Adesanya’s takedowns and grappling, we simply haven’t seen enough of it to really get a read on his tendencies; the striking part of the equation is so pure that wasting much time and energy on the grappling portion would be an injustice.

We’d be foolish to not look at the two kickboxing matches between Adesanya and Pereira in preparation for this fight. In diagram three, we have a sequence of stance switching from Adesanya, which reveals how he uses it to set up his striking. This is from their second fight and, while he was knocked out later in the match, it was a better example of what Adesanya is like as a mixed martial artist. This was his last kickboxing bout before switching over to MMA on a full-time basis.

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To start this exchange, I want to point out the time clock. While the technique and creativity are important here, the speed at which Adesanya works is very important, too. In Frame 1, the clock reads 2:47. There, we can see Adesanya in an orthodox stance. (2) In the next frame, we can see him with his right hand forward instead of his lead hand. Normally, the lead hand is where the hand fight occurs, but Adesanya is anything but normal and has a few tricks up his sleeve. Adesanya (3) steps backwards with his lead foot, and his stance goes from orthodox to southpaw. With his right hand extended from earlier, Adesanya neutralizes the left hook on the stance switch, all while appearing from the chest up to still be in the same stance. This alone is a lot to process as a pressure fighter. Pereira can’t simply rely on seeing which hand is forward. He has to look at the feet and hips to see where Adesanya’s stance lies and where his power shots can come from. Once Adesanya establishes that an opponent has seen it, however, he can simply change stances. This forces his opponents to reanalyze again, providing more openings for “The Last Stylebender.” (4) Now with his lead hand out, Pereira wants the left hook. The chin is free, and the lane is free. All he has to do is come over the top with his hook, and it will land. However, that’s exactly what Israel Adesanya wants. (5) Adesanya will switch back to orthodox, causing Pereira to reanalyze again, which gives the Nigerian a fraction of a second to throw out a half-hearted jab to parry down the left hook from his counterpart. With the left hook down, (6) the right cross is now open for Adesanya, and he fires away.

Remember how I pointed out the time at the top of the frame? The time is now 2:39. In eight seconds, Adesanya executed what took me more than 250 words to explain. I didn’t even go over all the nuances we could talk about. It’s this amount of complexity that makes Adesanya so unique. While it won’t completely paralyze a fighter as experienced as Pereira, a striker like Cannonier can be baffled by the number of adjustments needed to simply enter exchanges intelligently with Adesanya.

Another place to look at how switching stances can be used comes from one of the unlikeliest of places: Tai Tuivasa. In Tuivasa’s fight against Ciryl Gane, he was presented with the challenge of a reach disadvantage. With Gane having the superior striking pedigree and a six-inch reach advantage, Tuivasa had to find ways to get close to the Frenchman without getting battered on the way in. In Diagram 4 below, we see Tuivasa doing just that before getting drawn into the inevitable firefight that we ultimately witnessed.

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Naturally an orthodox fighter, Tuivasa hits harder out of his native stance. To get in and land those bombs that rocked Gane, Tuivasa planned to step through and get in before his counterpart could fight back. (1) To have his best foot forward when he was in the phone booth, Tuivasa approached Gane in southpaw, which is his right hand/foot forward. (2) To get in, Tuivasa stepped up with his rear leg, stepping through to his comfortable orthodox stance. Also notice his lead hand up and ready to fight the lead hand if Gane tried to impede the striking lane in the process. Once Tuivasa was in the phone booth with Gane, (3) he landed the roundhouse on the longer Frenchman. Adesanya is great with framing and impeding the striking lane to make his opponents lives hell in the cage. Like Tuivasa above, look for Adesanya to keep his hands in the punching lane and slow down Pereira’s shots even sooner. Maybe he’ll counter and do a shoey, too.

Lastly, I want to talk about the cardio for Adesanya and Pereira. Adesanya has gone the distance on multiple occasions. He has been in wars that go on for a long five rounds, and he has even fought off Marvin Vettori’s takedowns for eight total rounds across two fights. Adesanya can go the distance and still look good. Pereira, meanwhile, has shown the propensity to gas. He’s a big man, and he throws bombs. To make life miserable, Adesanya will look to the body kick to zap Pereira’s suspect gas tank. During his last kickboxing appearance, Pereira lost the cardio battle to Vakhitov in a match contested over the course of five three-minute rounds. The fight with Adesanya is five five-minute rounds. The longer this goes, the more favorable the gas tank situation becomes for Adesanya. We’ve seen in fights where Pereira gets tired that he will abandon the technical prowess he possesses and opt to set up the left hook with a big looping overhand right. This is precisely what got Adesanya caught in the last fight. Adesanya will also want to avoid the brawl. He’s not a brawler. He’s a finesse fighter. Don’t get drawn into a firefight if your opponent has a nuclear warhead and you have an AR-15. It won’t work well.

CONCLUSION

The fight between Adesanya and Pereira at UFC 281 is paradise for fans of the striking arts. While Adesanya can go out and jab and low kick like he mentioned during media day, the optimist in me believes we will get a performance more akin to the Brunson, Whittaker 1 and Costa fights as opposed to what he has done in recent outings.