Alex Pereira spotted flaw in Jiri Prochazka warm-up footage just minutes before fight which inspired savage head-kick KO
Alex Pereira watched Jiri Prochazka's warm-up and exploited a flaw to inflict his brutal KO at UFC 303.
Pereira came into the rematch with Prochazka as favourite, and he delivered another stunning knockout dropping his rival to the canvas with a booming head-kick.
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It was another incredible display from 'Poatan', but he has since revealed that he was inspired by a pre-fight warm-up video which emerged of the Czech fighter.
He revealed at the post-fight press conference: "No [it wasn’t part of the gameplan].
";Actually I was in the locker room talking to Plinio [Cruz] my coach and he showed me the video of Jiri warming up and I saw that he was trying to counter the calf kick.
“But I noticed that he was doing the wrong timing, and his timing wasn’t good.
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"I saw he was too focused on avoiding the calf kick, so he was leaving his hands down and leaving the head exposed.
"So, I told him [Cruz], I’m going to explore the high kick.”
Pereira's coach Plinio Cruz added: "Yeah man, be careful what you post before your fight.
“We were browsing on Instagram and had just seen somebody posted a video of us dancing in the warmup and Jiri getting ready.
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"The way he was doing - what he assumed what was the correct block for the calf kicks was wrong.
“I showed that to Alex and he goes, ‘When he’s doing this, he’s putting his hands down, I’m going to kick this guy in the head again.’”
Footage reveals Alex Pereira trained through the same injury that forced Conor McGregor to pull out of UFC 303
It was exactly this that Pereira exploited, with Prochazka's guard dropping in perfect timing for the division king to stop the fight in the second period.
He left his rival in a bad way, who was left struggling to stand himself up without assistance after the fight was stopped.
Poatan's next opponent is unclear, but a second switch up to the heavyweight division has been teased by the Brazilian giant.
Jon Jones currently holds the strap, and it is not yet clear if he would be willing to fight twice more to accommodate a potential challenge from Pereira.
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