New UFC champion Alex Pereira a modern MMA unicorn after Garden moment

New UFC champion Alex Pereira a modern MMA unicorn after Garden moment
Scott Fontana

Back in 1993, Ultimate Fighting Championship pitted 16 men of different martial arts disciplines against one another to decide which style — and which martial artist — reigned supreme.

That night, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Royce Gracie emerged as forces in the martial arts world.

Over the years, one discipline or another would have its day in the sun. Slowly, the styles and practitioners adjusted to one another, until they looked less like specializations and specialists.

You might even say the martial arts … mixed. And more and more of these fighters, over time, came into the sport with a style best described as abbreviated MMA, with proficiency in a host of combat scenarios. Specialists were a dying breed — especially if they weren’t accomplished wrestlers.

Don’t tell Alex Pereira he’s a specialist; he doesn’t see himself that way. But the former world champion kickboxer just added world champion mixed martial artist to his bevy of distinctions, only eight fights into his run in this new sport. That’s pretty rare in modern MMA.

“I’m definitely an MMA fighter,” Pereira, through an interpreter, told reporters hours after claiming the UFC middleweight title Saturday night, making the distinction that he is not merely a kickboxer who is competing in this sport. “I’ve been training a lot of MMA. I’ve got the weapons of an MMA fighter. I’m in love with the game, and I love training MMA.”

Pereira capped his meteoric rise with an emphatic TKO victory over his old kickboxing rival Israel Adesanya, the now-former holder of the belt, in the wee hours of Sunday morning — 29 years and about 60 minutes after UFC became a thing — in front of 20,845 at Madison Square Garden in the headliner of the breathtaking UFC 281 fight night.

Alex Pereira gets his hand raised after defeating Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title during UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 12, 2022.Alex Pereira gets his hand raised after defeating Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title during UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 12, 2022.Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

Give the new champ his flowers: Pereira showed in New York — the scene of his UFC debut 12 months ago — that he’s got a few non-striking tricks up his sleeve. He punctuated round two — the only stanza he won on the judges’ scorecards before the final-round finish — with a takedown. This, after a week of both men denying they would be the one to bring it to the floor, short of a knockdown.

“That was part of the original plan, to take him down and surprise him, like a surprise factor,” Pereira said, “and make him confused with the wrestling in the other rounds.”

Pereira later found his way out of a bad situation on the mat in the third after Adesanya – who dwarfs his rivals’ logged time in the cage and had arrived in the UFC 11-0 in MMA. Clearly, “specialist” comes with caveats, and not just because he says so.

“I think what it shows is what incredible athletes they both are,” UFC president Dana White told reporters about the idea of specialists like Pereira reaching the pinnacle of his promotion. “To be that dominant in kickboxing and that good, and then come over here, learn everything else, and then you two end up facing each other again over here; pretty crazy.”

But Pereira got the job done the only way anyone truly expected him to: stopping Adesanya with his heavy-hitting kickboxing arsenal. Adesanya told reporters the calf kicks added up, paying dividends by the final frame as his footwork fell apart. Pereira tagged his foe with a short right hook, killer instinct took over, and “Poatan” kept Adesanya on wobbly legs until the referee had seen enough. Don’t buy any “early stoppage” narratives; this fight was over, or just about to be way worse.

Alex Pereira (r.) kicks Israel Adesanya during their UFC 281 fight at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 12, 2022.Alex Pereira (r.) kicks Israel Adesanya during their UFC 281 fight at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 12, 2022.Getty Images

Pereira is a unicorn. It takes a special set of circumstances for an athlete who’s competed just four times in MMA — only one of them happening in the last six years — to march into the premier proving ground in mixed martial arts and reach the apex within a year, within four more fights. All parties — the UFC, Pereira, and Adesanya — openly acknowledge Pereira’s path to the top was paved by their rivalry in kickboxing, the fact that Adesanya’s dominance had cleared out all other credible challengers, and Pereira beating the only other man who made sense next for the erstwhile champion.

As quickly as he arrived at this point before the eyes of the masses, Pereira professed how much his kickboxing training — in relative obscurity, compared to the more mainstream UFC — was setting the stage for his moment in the spotlight.

“Everything I got was to get to this point right here,” Pereira said. “It was fast, and at the same time, it was not because it’s [been] 14 years that I’m in this game [combat sports]. Everything I conquered in kickboxing and everything else was to work on my goal to get here today.”

Will Pereira have to prove himself against Adesanya again? Right away? He just might. Again, Adesanya had lapped the division. He was also up 39-37 on all three scorecards before Pereira’s corner gassed the challenger up to pursue the finish and avoid the cards. Adesanya also is the most bankable star in the division by a wide margin. Surprise! Dollars make sense in the fight game.

Let’s say that happens. If the Brazilian passes the Izzy Test for the fourth time, best believe Pereira’s second title defense and first (presumably) against a fresh opponent will possess a more well-rounded game than Adesanya, who has always won thanks to his superlative striking arsenal and ability to keep the fight where he likes it.

Future fights could test the new champion’s mixed martial arts mettle — and he’ll test their chins striking acumen right back. But, at least for now, Pereira is a throwback champion 29 years in the making — or as much of one as we’ll get these days.