Israel Adesanya will have an advantage over Alex Pereira in MMA when it comes to the small ounce gloves.

That's according to former Glory kickboxing star and two-time former featherweight champion of the world Gabriel Varga.

Adesanya is coming off his fifth consecutive successful middleweight title defence at UFC 276 on July 2.

He is expected to return to the Octagon before the end of the year. An opponent has yet to be named.

Fans are desperate for The Last Stylebender to be put in there with the Brazilian. Pereira picked up the most impressive win of his career to date against Sean Strickland on the undercard of Adesanya's victory over Jared Cannonier. Many believe he poses the biggest threat to Adesanya's reign at the top of the 185lb division.

But Varga believes the smaller gloves will actually favour Adesanya, rather than Pereira.

Varga told his YouTube channel: "With Izzy's ability to fade back, which we saw in their second fight, I think it's going to be very difficult for Pereira to land the left hook which many people are calling his knockout punch, his best shot.

WATCH: Kickboxing champion Gabriel Varga breaks down Israel Adesanya's trilogy fight with Alex Pereira

Check out the video below...

"Now obviously the big difference between their previous fights and this fight is glove size. In the previous ones, they were probably in 10 oz gloves for kickboxing, now they're going to be in 4 oz gloves.

"Who does this benefit? Well, many people will argue that this will benefit Pereira because he has so much power and if he touches Izzy Izzy is going to be out. But it's the opposite in my opinion, I think it actually favours Adesanya and I will explain why right now.

"We already know that Pereira has crazy knockout power. He put Izzy out with the bigger gloves. The issue is not is it going to be easier for him to knock out Adesanya. That is not the question, in my opinion, since we already know that.

"The question is, is he going to be able to touch Adesanya, and - here is the big question - is Adesanya going to be able to hurt Pereira with the smaller gloves?

"Because let's be honest, last time in their kickboxing fight he was lighting up Pereira, but Pereira is a tough dude, he took the shots well.

"So all of that was basically to say when we look at their fighting styles, we see Adesanya usually with his hands down, using his footwork and getting his head off of the centre line. This is what he needs to do. Pereira is a little bit more hands up, he guards a little bit more like I would from my kickboxing background, and that is more dangerous with the smaller gloves.

"So I see these smaller gloves benefiting Adesanya."

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