Alex Pereira is ready to make the move to light heavyweight.
Just a few days removed from his UFC 287 title loss to Israel Adesanya, Alex Pereira is planning his next move. When Pereira first came to the UFC he needed to make his way to the middleweight title. The big storyline surrounding him and his journey in the UFC was to book a fight against Adesanya. These two had previously fought twice in kickboxing and Pereira was the winner both times. He began to win his first few UFC bouts and was granted the title shot pretty quickly. He made the most of it and defeated Adesanya for the third time to become champion.
Much has been said of Pereira’s size and power at middleweight. He has a large amount of weight to cut each time and now that he is no longer the champion at 185 pounds, he is looking to make that weight cut a bit easier and make the move to light heavyweight.
Alex Pereira is looking towards the 205 division but is not letting Israel Adesanya off the hook
Although Pereira is set to jump up to 205 pounds, he does not want fans to think he was having trouble with his weight or running from the Adesanya rematch. He explains that he is doing what his coaches believe is best for him.
“I think I did my work at 185 and now I’m feeling good to go up to 205,” he said. “Like I told you, when I’m feeling good this will be something natural and now I think it is. My next opponent, I can’t tell you yet but I will keep you updated here on my channel. But as well I want to make one thing clear. This division 185, I always made weight. A lot of people had doubts, but I always fulfilled my obligation. But now it’s the moment to go up to the next division. This will be better for me.”
Pereira thinks that if he wanted the fifth fight with Adesanya then the UFC would grant it. He spoke about how he feels Adesanya is being cocky now that he is moving up. He urges him to not act so fast.
“I’m not going up because I can’t make the weight anymore. I will always be able to make 185. Let’s see the behavior of him [Adesanya]. He’s behaving like this because Dana White spoke after the fight about my weight. It was his dream to win one time against me, and now he did,” he said. “But I’m sure if I would stay in this division, I can fight against him directly. Let’s see how he behaves. And it seems like he is thinking, ‘Oh this guy will never make weight again. I can [provoke] him, because he won’t do anything. I’m sure if I insist to fight him again immediately, the UFC and my promoters will make it happen.”
Pereira has been calling for a bout with light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill even before this weight class move was announced. It seems that the UFC was awaiting the return of former champion Jiří Procházka to match with Hill but now Pereira could be a good next option.
