- John McCarthy assumed Jamahal Hill thought he could beat Alex Pereira at UFC 300
- “Big John” said “Sweet Dreams” might have realized that “Poatan” is tougher to beat than Glover Teixeira
John McCarthy thinks Jamahal Hill didn’t expect that Alex Pereira would be way better than Glover Teixeira.
Alex fights back like a rattlesnake
Talking about UFC 300 on his Weighing In podcast with Josh Thomson, “Big John” said it appeared as if Hill was confident that he could beat Pereira the way he did with Teixeira at UFC 283. However, “Sweet Dreams” faced a rude awakening with “Poatan” early into the fight and never managed to figure out how to win.
“He came in saying that he had the power, he knew exactly what to do against Alex. And from the very start, it didn’t look like he knew what to do with Alex. I’m gonna be honest he looked a little bit confused and it’s not the movement of Alex, it’s just the way that he approached things and the way he stood there and Jamahal was looking for places to attack and just wasn’t able to see the things like… his fight with Glover was phenomenal. I mean, great performance, all the output and everything, [But with Pereira] there’s a difference in speed and that speed makes a difference in when you attack, it’s snapping back at you” McCarthy assessed.
“It’s like a rattlesnake you know, all of a sudden you’re sitting there thinking you can just you know grab a hold of its head yeah, try. I used to catch rattlesnakes, they’re not easy to catch you got to be pretty careful because if you don’t, it bites you and then you got problems and [Hill] got bit,” he added.
Josh says Alex was so calm and composed
McCarthy’s co-host and former UFC fighter Josh Thomson also raised an interesting analysis of UFC 300’s main event. For “The Punk,” Hill was stunned and caught off guard by Pereira’s unusual “calm” and “composed” approach.
“You could see that Jamahal Hill was struggling with the relaxation of Alex. He was struggling with expecting Alex to do more, to press the pace more or do something that would make him stand out but he was just so calm, so composed that Jamahal didn’t know what to do. He never fought somebody like that,” Thomson said.
“And it’s funny because Izzy had came out a while back and goes, ‘People don’t realize when he goes up to 205, he’s going to be a problem. He’s just a b***h to deal with’ and it makes sense because they’re not used to people being that composed out there, that relaxed and he looked good, he looked fantastic,” he continued.
Alex wants the big boys next
As expected, Pereira remains focused on following his plan. He now wants to move up to heavyweight and compete at UFC 301 in Brazil. As early as now, “Poatan” is already being linked to a showdown with Tom Aspinall.
However, UFC president Dana White seems to be hesitant on agreeing with Pereira’s decision to move up to the heavyweight division.
Watch McCarthy’s full podcast episode below:
