- Alex Pereira’s coach Plinio Cruz shared how UFC president Dana White gave “Poatan” a $303K fight bonus
- Cruz said they did not expect to knock Jiri Prochazka out in the first two rounds
Alex Pereira’s coach Plinio Cruz talked about how the light heavyweight champion earned a $303,000 fight bonus and why they thought the Jiri Prochazka fight will be longer than it did.
The boss rewarded Alex
Speaking to The MMA Hour, Cruz revealed how the backstage conversation about fight bonus between “Poatan” and UFC president Dana White went down. According to Cruz, White initially wanted to give Pereira a regular $50,000 fight bonus for his stunning KO win over Prochazka.
However, the UFC boss figured he would reward the Brazilian for stepping in and saving UFC 303 and increased it to a staggering $303,000.
“He was talking to Dana in the back, and they were talking about a bunch of stuff, and Dana said, ‘As a matter of fact, you won Performance of the Night.’ And he said, ‘$303,000?’ He goes, ‘No, no, no, $50,000.’ But reality of the fact is, he did not. They gave $300,000 bonuses for [UFC] 300 and [Pereira] did not get Performance of the Night. They gave two to Max [Holloway], so he was a little bit salty about that,” Cruz recalled.
“And I think because of all their history and then taking the fight on two weeks, Dana looked at him and said, ‘You know what, man? I’m going to take care of you. You’ve got the $303,000.’ He even joked, he said buy a supercar with that money. [Pereira] goes, ‘I’ve got enough supercars.’ He wants a Cybertruck,” he continued.
The KO came earlier than expected
Cruz also divulged that they plan to stay “patient” and wait for the perfect timing to knock “BJP” out, possibly in Round 3 onwards. However, they saw a clip of Prochazka’s pre-fight warmup where they noticed that he was “leaving the head exposed.”
After quickly studying it, Cruz said Pereira was thinking of unloading that head kick and that’s what happened early in the second round.
“The real scenario is that Alex is a much better standup fighter than Prochazka is, so we wanted to be patient,” Cruz said. “I told him, ‘Bro, let’s just take the first two rounds easy, let’s pace ourselves.’ Because Jiri, as the longer the fight goes, he tends to let a little bit of his level of discipline lowers and he starts to throw stuff, he starts to get a little more risky, he takes chances. And our game [plan] until the fight night was basically going over there, feel [out] the first two rounds, and push the pace as the fight goes, especially if Prochazka was going to maybe try to do a grappling match.”
“We knew that none of them will be able to grind for five rounds, because it was week two of the camp, so the longer the fight goes, that’ll benefit Alex. And then it happened, that thing in the locker room.”
Fans have been yearning for White to allow Pereira to face Jon Jones. The UFC has yet to decide on it but “Poatan” seems eager to make the move to heavyweight.
Watch Cruz’s full interview below:
