“It gives me an opportunity to show and remind people how great I am because we live in this time of goldfish memories where people forget what I’ve done and what I’ve brought to the game,” he said of running it back with Pereira on Saturday. “ Because of the recent performance, they just think — even that fight, I was winning until I wasn’t, but people only care about the result, so it gives me an opportunity to show and remind people how great I am.
“It is tantalizing,” he said of being the hunter instead of the hunted this time around. “It is very appealing because now — it’s not even about the belt, bro; it’s about taking this guy out.
“It’s about taking this guy out and putting his head on my mantle, looking at it from time-to-time and thinking, ‘Yeah, I did that’ because he’s done it to me. So I have to do it to him, and that’s the only way I’ll be satisfied.”
While their shared history is woven into the fabric of this fight and continues to become an increasingly fascinating part of the conversation each time they prepare to face one another, it’s not something the 33-year-old former champion clings to as he readies to step in with Pereira for the second time in the UFC and fourth time in his career.
“History is history — you have to look at our past to learn from it, but we can’t dwell on it,” began Adesanya, who makes his ninth consecutive pay-per-view main event appearance this weekend. “That is in the past — there is nothing I can do — and dwelling on it won’t serve me now.
“There is no past, there is no tomorrow, only right now, so I’m focusing on the moment and staying in the present.”
