UFC 276 Results: Israel Adesanya defends middleweight throne in 5-rounder with Jared Cannonier, calls out Alex Pereira

Israel Adesanya notched his third straight win to retain his middleweight title against Jared Cannonier in the main event of UFC 276. The stacked event took place at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The champion once again had a grand entrance. He walked out to the theme of WWE legend The Undertaker, donning the wrestler's signature hat while carrying an urn.

Once the fight began, Adesanya did what he does best, methodically breaking his opponent down through the course of a 25-minute affair. After five rounds, all three judges agreed that Adesanya did enough to secure his fifth title defense. The scores were 49-46, 50-45, and 49-46 in favor of the Nigerian-born Kiwi.

Cannonier put up a tremendous effort, though. From the get-go, the challenger looked to establish control by taking the center of the octagon and stalking the champion. In doing so, however, he allowed Adesanya to stay comfortably in range, riding his bicycle while looking for openings.

Round two was essentially the same story as Adesanya continued to land crisp jabs while chopping down his opponent's lead leg. However, the action paused momentarily after Cannonier was hit with an unintentional eye-poke. After taking a few seconds to recover, 'The Killa Gorilla' insisted that he was ready to resume.

Cannonier felt the urgency to increase his activity in round three, but Adesanya was just too quick to hit. The challenger tried to disrupt the champion's tempo by repeatedly clinching and pressing him up against the cage, however, 'The Last Stylebender' easily escaped each time.

Adesanya kept his middleweight record unblemished with 12 straight wins in the division. His lone loss came against former light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz back in March 2021.

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What's next for Israel Adesanya?

Israel Adesanya knew exactly who his next challenger will be. Earlier in the night, his former rival Alex Pereira scored a massive knockout win over Sean Strickland, which many believe warrants an automatic title shot against Adesanya.

During his octagon post-fight interview, 'The Last Stylebender' said:

"We know who's next, that's 'Poatan'. Trust me, the first time I told you, it was an error on my part spamming that right hand, but that was in kickboxing. It's easy to knockout that homeboy or what's that hillbilly's name [Sean Strickland], because he was parrying the jabs. But like I said in the press conference, next time I put you on skates, you're gonna get frozen like Elsa. I'll leave it at that."

Watch Israel Adesanya's post-fight interview below:

Adesanya and Pereira have fought twice before under the Glory banner during their kickboxing days. Pereira got the better of Adesanya both times and scored a knockout win over 'The Last Stylebender' in their final kickboxing meeting.