Alex Pereira’s MMA knockout of the day was a destructive hello message to the casual MMA fan audience at UFC 268.
UFC 268 was an event filled with several highlight moments. First among them is Justin Gaethje and Michael Chandler’s lightweight war that will go down in division history as a true battle of wills. The promotion’s newest cuddly bear of violence in Chris Barnett landed a spinning heel kick that a man of his size probably should not be able to do. And of course, poor legendary Frankie Edgar was handed another knockout loss as Marlon Vera whipped out and landed an Anderson Silva-style front kick to the mush.
Yet, few of those men had quite the same amount of hype and expectation on what their Madison Square Garden performances would be like as Alex Pereira. Despite the 34-year-old not having fought in MMA in nearly a year, fans expected the former Glory Kickboxing star to go out and put on a show in his UFC debut, against a pretty solid fighter in Andreas Michailidis. I mean this was the guy who knocked out maybe the best striker in MMA, Israel Adesanya when the pair fought in kickboxing.
Alex Pereira scores MMA knockout of the day flying knee at UFC 267
Not to mention, Las Vegas oddsmakers made the Brazilian a pretty sizable favorite.
Although they expected him to win, jumping into the Octagon for the first time, after a year away from the sport, and with only four cage fights on his resume is a tough ask. And early on, the Greek “Spartan” was doing all he could to make it an ugly and grapple-heavy affair. After his first five minutes in the fabled Octagon, “Poatan” was down a round on all the judge’s cards.
However, that all changed just 12 seconds into the second frame when the UFC newbie had enough of playing the grappling game and unleashed a beautiful flying knee to the face of Michailidis. Snapping his head back PEZ dispenser style. A couple of punches came after to force the referee to jump in to stop the action, but the Fight Nights Global veteran was toast once his derriere hit the mat.
Despite some rough waters in the first, Pereira’s “hello I’m Alex” introduction to UFC fans is a worthy KO of the day.
In a score of one to 10, how would you score Pereora’s stunning KO finish on Saturday night?
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