What to make of Alex Pereira’s small sample size? Has he shown enough to be the favorite against Israel Adesanya?
Sample size is often a problem in MMA. Stats are not tracked for most fighters before they fight in the UFC. Even when other promotions track fight stats, the numbers are rarely made available to the public, but this has gotten better recently (big shout to the PFL and their SmartCage®).
For someone who likes to use said stats to preview fights, this can be a challenge. I often bring up the stats-based article that I wrote for ESPN prior to Ben Askren vs. Demian Maia after Askren had landed zero significant strikes in his first two UFC fights.
On Saturday former two-division Glory kickboxing champion Alex Pereira will fight for the UFC middleweight title after only seven professional MMA fights and only three UFC fights. His striking numbers after those three fights are quite strong. He has landed 6.29 significant strikes per minute, absorbed 3.36 per minute and therefore has a +2.93 striking differential.
Of course these numbers are based only on his three victories over Andreas Michailidis, Bruno Silva and Sean Strickland. So what can we really infer from these figures?
The following chart shows the relationship between a currently ranked fighter’s striking differential after their first three fights and their career striking differential as of today. The fighters in orange are the fighters who saw their striking differential increase after their first three fights, while the fighters in blue saw their striking differential decrease. The fighters in gray stayed the same. The larger the value, the darker the color.
There are some dramatic changes. For example, Beneil Dariush had a -1.97 striking differential after his first three UFC fights, and he has a +1.26 differential as of today. On the other hand, veteran Glover Teixeira went from a +12.06 differential to a -0.14 measure today. Some fighters, like Teixeira, have fights from other promotions including in their career numbers.
For those who care about such things, the trend line has an r-squared of 0.36, which would imply a somewhat meaningful correlation. 58 of the currently ranked fighters saw their striking differential increase, 12 basically stayed the same and 106 experienced a decline. On average, a fighter’s striking differential declined by 0.46 from their first three fights to today. If Pereira experienced a similar decline, he would still have a strong differential.
While Pereira is light on MMA experience, he does have significant experience against Adesanya. The two fought twice in kickboxing with Pereira winning both fights. Their first fight was a decision that went to Pereira despite Adesanya having a solid case, while their second fight was a third-round knockout after Adesanya seemingly built a large lead.
The power that carried Pereira to the victory in the second fight will likely be a factor in the MMA rubber match. “Poatan” has scored knockdowns in two of his three UFC fights, and he is averaging 1.31 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time.
Pereira displayed similar power during his Glory kickboxing run. In his last 11 fights with the promotion, he averaged 1.65 knockdowns per 15 minutes and stopped seven of those fights by KO/TKO.
The good news for Pereira is that his inexperience in MMA might not hurt him against Adesanya. The champion also comes from a kickboxing background, and has mostly shown a disinterest in mixing the martial arts offensively. He has failed on his only three takedown attempts and attempted only three submissions in his 13-fight UFC career.
Unless Adesanya employs entirely different tactics in this fight, it should likely play out as a striking contest. That appears to give the challenger a dramatic advantage he would not have against many other MMA fighters as experienced and accomplished as Adensaya.
Despite the previous knockout loss to Pereira, Adesanya’s defense will be an essential factor in this fight. In the past, he has caused a significant drop in the landing rate of his opponents’ effective striking output. His striking differential has declined somewhat over his last few fights. However, he has still only been outlanded by Jan Blachowicz when he moved up to light heavyweight.
Folks who know more about striking than me can probably speak to Adesanya’s ability to limit the volume of his opponents and stay just ahead. I simply chalk it up to strategy and tactics supported by the data.
In some ways, his deliberate approach opens him up to criticism from those who did not like his performance against Jared Cannonier. However, he outlanded Cannonier 116 to 90, and he never let Cannonier land more than 20 significant strikes in a round.
Pereira will likely have more success than Cannonier, and the power potential is an ever present equalizer. Adesanya has never been knocked down in the UFC and seemingly has not really been hurt since the Kelvin Gastelum fight in 2019. If Pereira is unable to hurt Adesanya, it seems unlikely that the challenger will be able to continually outland the current defensively minded iteration of the champion over the course of 25-minutes.
Related Previous Posts
Israel Adesanya deserves to be a big favorite, but against Jared Cannonier, his style could open the door to judging shenanigans
Robert Whittaker will need to drastically change his tactics to best Israel Adesanya in the rematch
Can Marvin Vettori follow Jan Blachowicz’s blueprint to defeat Israel Adesanya?
What will Israel Adesanya's defense do to Jan Blachowicz's striking rate?
Comparing the striking power of Glory champion Alex Pereira to ranked UFC fighters
Tremendous match. Let's see who gets the defensive timing and range down first, to be able to execute counters, and to further build confidence and momentum required for offensive output.