Alex Pereira KOs Israel Adesanya In The Final Round! New Champ!

OH MY GOD! ALEX PEREIRA DOES IT AGAIN AND KNOCKS STYLEBENDER OUT IN A FIGHT HE WAS ABOUT TO LOSE! PEREIRA IS UFC MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION 5 FIGHTS INTO HIS UFC CAREER!

I mean - on a card full of slobberknockers, Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira just put on a beautiful technical chess match in our main event, huh? What a great fucking fight to close out a great night.

Poor Izzy, man - that was nearly a perfect fight until it wasn't! Just like their kickboxing bout where Pereira KO'd him! Insane.

At least Pereira's son wasn't there making fun of him to his face again…

Let's talk about this fight. Round 1 was a feeling out process for sure, but it ended with Izzy putting Pereira on skates and almost finishing him at the horn!

Izzy then started the second cocky, but Pereira began to find his timing and landed a couple good shots on the champ, and then closed the round out with a takedown, likely securing it in his favor. 

Pereira then tried to get another takedown in the third, but his gas tank was already leakin so Izzy reversed it and took his back, which he held for most of the round….and then THAT round ended with an axe kick to the body!

Stylebender then took over in the fourth, where his 1-2 started landed consistently at the start and he pushed Pereira up against the fence for the second half; so going into the fifth, I had it 3-1 Stylebender with Pereira in need of a finish to win. 

Pereira landed a good low kick that threw Izzy off balance to start the final round, which made Stylebender tumble backwards, and start retreating - and then before too long, Pereira started unloading against the cage until the ref had no choice but to step in and stop the fight….

Fucking crazy way to end the night.

Oh, by the way, Stylebender walked out to the SAW theme with images of Billy the Puppet from the franchise flashing on screen….

….which was a lot cooler before he got knocked out.

I think you gotta do an immediate rematch here. Izzy had one of the most impressive title reigns in the history of the division, and he was winning that fight until he wasn't. He definitely deserves it, and I wanna see that fight again ASAP.

Signing off from Madison Square Garden. Thanks to everyone who tuned into the coverage tonight. Appreciate yas.