Sometimes the only way to defeat a superior opponent is to poison them, which is how the Hongkou dojo got rid of master Huo Yuanjia. Or you can just walk up and stab them in the back, like when Commodus hugged Maximus with a giant knife.
Perhaps that’s a gameplan former UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya should consider for his Alex Pereira rematch, assuming the promotion rubber-stamps an immediate do-over. “The Last Stylebender” was stopped by “Poatan” at UFC 281 in New York and was also defeated twice by the Brazilian on the kickboxing circuit.
“At that point you just have to poison him because like you can’t defeat him in one-on-one combat so we gotta do the gladiator thing and like stab him or poison him before the fight,” fellow UFC middleweight Chris Curtis told Helen Yee. “I think he’s played that s—t off. Because like if one dude kept hounding me down my entire career and beating me, I’m gonna come find you at home. I’m settling this with knives, I don’t care.”
Think you can’t get away with that strategy in modern times? UFC middleweight Nick Diaz would like to have a word with you.
“I actually feel bad for Izzy, like bro, you have your own personal boogeyman,” Curtis continued. “Like, how many times can you do everything right and the dude’s like, ‘And last second, hahaha! I win!’ Like he was winning the fight, what I thought it could have been four rounds to one maybe. Like going to have that fight ended, he was two minutes from like retaining his title. And Pereira does it again. You got your own personal (expletive) boogeyman. That is miserable.”
Winning lol, he was surviving and trying to score points while not getting flat lined 