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Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya may well have the best rivalry in combat sports today.
The two UFC superstars have fought three times: once in kickboxing and twice in the UFC.
Pereira got the better of Adesanya the first time around. He then took the UFC middleweight title off him with a fifth-round TKO at UFC 281 in November.
But it’s Adesanya who got the last laugh, for now.
Adesanya avenged the loss and regained his title with a stunning second-round knockout of his own at UFC 287 in April.
Pereira, who is an absolute giant of a man, is now heading up the light heavyweight division, seemingly putting their beef on hold.
But the two just can’t seem to avoid one another, running into each other at Los Angeles International Airport while waiting in a security line.
Interestingly, though, the meeting was cordial, with both fighters joking about the happenstance.
Pereira explained why that was the case on a recent episode of the Trocação Franca podcast.
“We were both in Australia and at the same hotel, some people from my crew saw him there but we never actually met there,” Pereira said. “When we were leaving, at the Los Angeles [to] New York connection, we met in the line and said hi, had some laughs. I got there first, he came in after, and we greeted.”
Pereira, who speaks limited English, said he asked his coach to ask Adesanya if he’d shoot a couple videos for social media. But that doesn’t mean their beef is settled.
“The rivalry will always exist,” Pereira said. “I’m fighting (Jan Blachowicz) now, I have to have rivalry with the guy I’m fighting, you know? He’s in there and he wants to kill me, and I want to do the same to him. How am I going to treat him [nicely]? I have to be mean there.
“It’s the same thing with Adesanya. For example, if I were to fight him again, we would have a rivalry. But now, why? We’ll meet; Adesanya, he’s there with a teammate, I’m in the same spot, and we can’t [cross paths] because we’ll destroy the whole place and beat each other up? That doesn’t exist. That type of rivalry doesn’t exist with me.”
So that’s that.
Friends? Not really.
But Pereira clearly doesn’t take the Attitude Era Stone Cold Steve Austin approach to rivalries.