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Israel Adesanya, the former heavyweight champion, will seek retribution against Alex Pereira in the main event of UFC 287, which will take place in Miami on April 8. This will be their fourth encounter in combat sports.
Adesanya lost the UFC middleweight championship to "Poatan" in their first fight inside the cage in November of last year after the Brazilian had defeated him twice in kickboxing. Adesanya is expected to win the title right away despite suffering his first middleweight loss last time out.
One of his former opponents claims that even if he succeeds, he won't be the "best" middleweight. After defeating Roman Dolidze this past weekend at UFC 286, #3-ranked contender Marvin Vettori was asked to choose between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya as the "better" fighter.
Vettori lost to former champion Whittaker at UFC Paris in September after losing on the scorecards.
"I think Whittaker (is better), man," Vettori said. "A way to put it is like, if you line up like, 10 very good fighters and you put both of them against these 10 very good fighters, Whittaker would beat most of them. But with the way they match up, Whittaker struggles with Adesanya a little bit. That's kind of the way I would put it.
It seems sense that Vettori, who had previously indicated interest in running it back with both Whittaker and Adesanya, got closer to those prospects by rebounding in London on March 18.