Watch: ‘Incredible’ reaction by Francis Ngannou and Alexander Volkanovski to Israel Adesanya's knockout win at UFC 287
In the main event of UFC 287, Israel Adesanya surpassed Alex Pereira and lifted the middleweight championship title on Saturday night. It was a revenge victory for "The Last Stylebender" as Pereira had defeated him earlier to become the champion in the same weight category.
Leading into the high-octane fight, there was lot of trash talk from both superstars. In fact, Pereira had vowed to demolish Adesanya and take him out of the Octagon like a dog after removing his collar(reference to the dog collar Adesanya had been wearing in appearances before the fight).
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But on match day, Adesanya knocked out Pereira, four minutes and 21 seconds into round two of their head-to-head fight and grabbed the middleweight title belt for the second time in his career.
UFC superstars Francis Ngannou and Alexander Volkanovski watched the match on television. Both were ecstatic on witnessing the moment when Adesanya knocked out Pereira. In viral videos of their reactions, Ngannou and Volkanovski can be seen erupting in joy over Adesanya's dramatic victory.
Watch the videos here:
After winning against Pereira, Adesanya celebrated by acting as if he was firing arrows on the knocked out opponent. In a celebratory pose, Adesanya fired three arrows and some experts speculated that those signified the three losses that he had sustained against Pereira in previous fights. On Sunday, Adesanya took to Twitter and reacted to such speculations.
"I really didn’t think of it like that. But that’s the story now, my spirit knew!," tweeted Adesanya.
Meanwhile, in the co-main event, Gilbert Burns conquered local favourite Jorge Masvidal by unanimous decision. Burns won via scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28. After his heartbreaking loss, Masvidal announced retirement from UFC.
In other matches in the main card, Rob Font knocked out Adrian Yanez in the bantamweight category and grabbed win in round 1 itself. Kevin Holland knocked out Santiago Ponzinibbio in welterweight category and emerged victorious. Christian Rodriguez decimated Raul Rosas Jr. in the bantamweight category and won by unanimous decision.
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