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A good sports rivalry needs quality foes producing dramatic moments. For years, Israel Adesanya and Alex Pereira have build exactly that type of rivalry and in the main event of UFC 287 on Saturday night, Adesanya authored their most thrilling chapter yet.

After more than seven years of attempting to defeat Pereira inside the kickboxing ring and UFC Octagon and failing on three separate occasions, Adesanya finally had his perfect moment, crushing Pereira with a pair of right hands to regain the UFC middleweight championship with a second-round knockout.

Plus, a pair of rising prospects learned hard lessons on the main card on Saturday night. Teenager Raul Rosas Jr. suffered his first pro defeat when he was beaten by Christian Rodriguez to open the PPV. Rosas Jr. dominated the first round with his grappling and wrestling as he threatened with submission attempts, but Rodriguez took over from there as Rosas Jr. quickly ran out of gas. And Rob Font put an end to the Adrian Yanez hype train with a vicious first-round knockout. Yanez entered on a five-fight win streak with four of those coming by finish.

It was a fitting capper to a night that saw dramas of all sorts play out in front of a lively crowd inside Kaseya Center in Miami. Let's take a look at the biggest takeaways from those storylines coming out of UFC 287.

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The Israel Adesanya business might start booming

Adesanya was a star well before he suffered the loss to Pereira at UFC 281. He'd held UFC gold for more than three years and his rise to the top of the sport featured some truly impressive highlights. The shine had started to wear off Adesanya's title reign, however. After a failed bid to win light heavyweight gold against Jan Blachowicz, many fans felt Adesanya had lost some of his edge as he took Marvin Vettori, Robert Whittaker and Jared Cannonier to decisions in three straight fights.

In Pereira, Adesanya had a new rival with an intriguing history. Beating Pereira at UFC 281 would have provided something of a satisfying conclusion to that story but suffering the TKO loss may have been the best thing that could happen for Adesanya's overall star power. Pereira was Adesanya's boogeyman, following him from kickboxing to the UFC and ending an incredible championship run. Adesanya picking himself back up, getting right back in the Octagon with that monster and crushing him with an all-time great knockout -- the win he'd been seeking for more than seven years? That's Hollywood-level storytelling.

Everything about UFC 287 was great for Adesanya, from flipping the script on Pereira to his emotional post-fight speech. Adesanya would obviously have rather not suffered three previous losses to Pereira, but the way everything played out may have been exactly what was needed to take Adesanya's stardom to the next level.

Jorge Masvidal gets a fitting sendoff in defeat

In the lead-up to his co-main event fight with Gilbert Burns, Jorge Masvidal repeatedly indicated that a loss would likely see him retire from mixed martial arts. Of course, what a fighter says and what a fighter does are not always the same.

However, after Burns outpunched and outmaneuvered Masvidal over 15 minutes, taking a clear unanimous decision in the process, Masvidal did the right thing and walked away from the sport where he'd become an unlikely superstar. From starting out in street fights put on by Kimbo Slice, to brawls on the beach for BodogFIGHT, to fighting in the Playboy Mansion for Srikeforce, to going viral when he was caught in a Toby Imada inverted triangle in the Bellator cage, Masvidal has fought seemingly everywhere and done everything possible. That his story ended with a lengthy UFC stint that started after he'd already had 30 career fights is incredible.

But the man who once "officially" won the title of "Baddest Motherf---er" had lost four straight fights and was not terribly close to a win in any of those outings. The shine of being "the baddest" fades quickly when that doesn't translate into victories. Three and a half years after his last victory, Masvidal knew his place in the sport was no longer battling for championship gold and he could either hang on too long or walk away in front of his hometown Miami fans. There was no better time and no better decision for one of MMA's realest badasses to put down the gloves.

Rising stars taught hard lessons

The UFC 287 main card kicked off with 18-year-old Raul Rosas Jr. looking to pick up his second UFC win. Rosas' story is incredible. For a high school kid to not only receive a UFC contract, but also to win his first fight in the promotion, is a wild accomplishment that may never be duplicated. But learning on the job is a big ask when the job site is the Octagon. Against Christian Rodriguez, Rosas fought with all the enthusiasm and recklessness you'd expect from a teenager and it cost him. Rodriguez is also a young man, but at 25, he is still far more developed physically, emotionally and mentally than a fighter still worrying about getting his high school diploma.

Rodriguez calmly rode out Rosas' first-round flurries of takedown attempts, allowing Rosas to gas himself out. Once Rosas started to fade, the fight was all Rodriguez as he cruised to a unanimous decision win.

Rosas undoubtedly still has designs on becoming the youngest champion in UFC history. However, his career may be best served if the UFC allows him to continue developing on the regional scene. There are no safe or easy fights in the UFC and Rosas is still a growing boy. Best to let him feast on smaller fish before getting thrown back into that dangerous ocean.

Adrian Yanez learned his own harsh lessons on the main card. Riding a nine-fight winning streak that included four knockouts in his five UFC wins, Yanez took a big step up in competition when he faced Rob Font.

Yanez's style had made him an attraction, but that style had some significant issues. For one, Yanez's strikes landed and strikes absorbed stats in the UFC were nearly identical. His counterpunching had been effective enough that taking one to land one had been a successful strategy. Eventually, someone was going to catch up to Yanez and exploit that recklessness.

That's exactly what Font did, taking advantage of one of Yanez's wild flurries to land a massive right hand that put Yanez down. It's now on Yanez to learn from what happened and clean up his game if he hopes to ever reach the top of the bantamweight division.