Israel Adesanya on UFC 287 Celebration: ‘I did that kid a favor’
Israel Adesanya has beef with a child. That child, specifically, is Alex Pereira’s son. Adesanya knocked out Pereira to earn his first victory over his rival at UFC 287 and celebrated by taunting Pereira and his son.
First, Adesanya went after Pereira as he famously shot arrows at his knocked-out opponent. For those unaware, Pereira usually shoots arrows during his walkout. Then, Adesanya found Pereira’s son in the crowd and fell to the ground while pretending to be knocked out. That is the same thing Pereira’s son did to Adesanya after Pereira won via knockout in their second kickboxing bout.
Adesanya addressed his UFC 287 post-fight celebration on the inaugural episode of his Young Man Ramble Podcast which was posted to his YouTube channel FREESTYLEBENDER.
In Adesanya’s eyes, he took that moment to teach a lesson.
“I don’t react, I respond,” Adesanya said. “People were like, ‘He’s only a kid.’ I am like, and the f–k what. If I had a son, and he came into the cage after UFC 287 and then started to do that next to Pereira, I would have been like, ‘What the f–k are you doing? Hey come here, Apologize. Apologize to that man.’ Guy knocked me out in his home country and it’s my first ever time being put out cold. Then, you see your kid doing that and you don’t have the discipline to scold him.
“Then again, before (UFC) 281 you are in your car being like, ‘Oh, look what my son did. Haha.’ I was like, ‘What the f–k.’ You are making fun of one of the moments of my life that I am not so proud of. I was like, ‘Bet. If you don’t want to teach your son manners and respect. I will.’ I did him a favor. I did that kid a favor. Now he has a life lesson that he can hold onto forever.”
It does not seem like Adesanya had any remorse for Pereira’s son, either.
“I don’t regret it,” Adesanya said. “I am glad I did it. F–k them kids.”
All this does is start the age-old debate of where the line in trash talk lies. Some people will say family is off-limits, which is respectable.
Others will say there is no line. It depends on who you ask. I will say, in this scenario, Adesanya gets a little leeway because he did not initiate the family-oriented trash talk. Pereira encouraged his son’s behavior. Adesanya also did not take the taunting to the same level as Conor McGregor did when talking about Dustin Poirier’s family. Still, Adesanya is beefing which a child, a massive step down from his beef with Chris Pratt.
It will be interesting to see if the continued trash talk between Adesanya and Pereira results in a trilogy fight. It definitely is not likely as Adesanya has stated he is not interested in the trilogy and Pereira is moving to light heavyweight. Still, the continued trash talk between these two only keeps the door open.
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