ALEX PEREIRA ALREADY BACK IN GYM AFTER CALCULATED UFC 303 HEAD KICK KNOCKOUT

If anyone deserves a vacation following UFC 303 it’s Alex Pereira, yet “Poatan” was back in the gym training and sparring less than 48 hours after his highlight-reel knockout victory over Jiri Prochazka.

The Brazilian, who originally gained notoriety for being a two-weight Glory kickboxing champion, has become a superstar in mixed martial arts despite only training full-time in the sport since 2021. Although he mostly uses his elite striking to fell his opponents in the cage, Pereira has continuously built out his MMA skill set by steadily improving his various grappling techniques.

Pereira posted footage of himself training with and tossing around his teammate and former light-heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira at their gym.

Kayla Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medallist in judo and a new star in the UFC’s women’s bantamweight division, was seen giving Pereira a yellow belt in judo at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas following his latest victory.

Harrison and Pereira spent some time training together and sharing various techniques earlier this year.

“Kayla, you can give him a black belt in judo now,” Teixeira said at the end of the video. “You see that throw?”

The 205-pound champion didn’t use any judo techniques during the finishing sequence in the UFC 303 main event, however, as Pereira dropped Prochazka with a left hook at the end of the first round and the first strike he threw in the second round was a switch kick to the head that dropped his opponent and ended the fight.

Going high on Prochazka was a choice Pereira made after the champ saw a video of the challenger preparing for their rematch.

Pereira had success with low leg kicks against Prochazka in November at UFC 295 when the two fought for the interim title at Madison Square Garden and Pereira won by second-round technical knockout. 

“I was in the locker room talking to my coach (and translator, Plinio Cruz) and he showed me the video of Jiri warming up and I saw that he was trying to counter the calf kick, but I noticed that he was doing the wrong timing, and his timing wasn’t good,” Pereira explained at the UFC 303 post-fight press conference. “I saw he was too focused on avoiding the calf kick, so he was leaving his hands down and leaving the head exposed. So, I told (Cruz), I’m going to explore the high kick.”

Cruz expanded on that to Full Send MMA after the fight.

Pereira only absorbed seven strikes at UFC 303 — four to the head, three to the body and one to the legs.

“Alex is a much better standup fighter than Prochazka is, so we wanted to be patient,” Cruz told MMAFighting on Monday. “I told him, ‘Bro, let’s just take the first two rounds easy, let’s pace ourselves,’ because Jiri, the longer the fight goes, he tends to let a little bit of his level of discipline lower 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 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 (a short notice fight), so the longer the fight goes, that’ll benefit Alex. And then it happened, that thing in the locker room.”

Pereira has used a variety of striking techniques to finish his UFC opponents. He won his UFC debut with a flying knee, used his hands to defeat Israel Adesanya, Sean Strickland and Jamahal Hill, and he has finished Prochazka with both elbows and a head kick. 

In less than three full years spent in the UFC, Pereira has amassed an 8-1 record, first winning the middleweight title before moving up and winning the light-heavyweight title. His past six victories have all been against fighters that have been champions at the UFC level.

The soon-to-be 37-year-old (Pereira’s birthday is July 7) is the clear frontrunner for 2024’s Fighter of the Year at the midway point of the calendar but his next opponent is unclear at the moment.

“He looked incredible,” Dana White said of Pereira’s latest performance.

Pereira has mentioned that he wants to challenge himself and compete at heavyweight but is also content defending his title. White sounded as if he’d prefer to see Pereira stay at 205 pounds for the time being but with an interim heavyweight title fight between Tom Aspinall and Curtis Blaydes scheduled for UFC 304 at the end of July, plus Jon Jones lurking on the sidelines, there are currently a plethora of options open for the second half of the year for the UFC’s ninth two-weight champion.

2024-07-02T18:33:34Z dg43tfdfdgfd