Alex Pereira has a plan B for heavyweight, and it runs straight back to 205 pounds with a title fight attached.
Speaking on Connect Cast, in comments clipped and posted by Championship Rounds on X, Pereira said that if Sergei Pavlovich beats him at UFC 335 he won’t hang around the heavyweight division absorbing punishment from bigger men. He was blunt about the size gap.
“Everyone knows I’m not as heavy as those heavyweights. I’m not going to stay there taking a beating with that disadvantage,” Pereira said. “I’d go back to my division, where I was already well adapted. It would be [straight] for the [light heavyweight] belt.”
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No tune-up fight. No climb back through the rankings. He’s going straight to the front of the line, at least in his own head.
How he got here
Pereira (13-4) is one of the stranger success stories the UFC has ever produced. He won titles at middleweight and light heavyweight within nine fights in the promotion, then went chasing a third belt at heavyweight. That bid ended at UFC Freedom 250, where Ciryl Gane stopped him by TKO to win the interim heavyweight title (his second time holding an interim strap, for those keeping a running tally of placeholder belts).
Pereira still doesn’t love how that one ended. In a separate Connect Cast clip, he argued the result might have been different with someone other than Herb Dean in charge, saying Gane had gassed himself out and that he was still on his feet when it was waved off.
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“They stopped the fight and I was still standing. I wasn’t on the ground,” Pereira said.
So he’s 0-1 at heavyweight and the 38-year-old is somehow ranked No. 3 in the division anyway, a placement Rizvan Kuniev called “very strange” this week. Kuniev also said he’d like to fight Pereira next, mostly because a win over a name that big would do wonders for his own profile. At least he’s honest about it.
What’s next
Pereira meets Pavlovich in the co-main event of UFC 335 on Dec. 12 in Las Vegas. A win could put him back in line for heavyweight gold. Gane, now the undisputed champ, defends against Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on Nov. 14 at Madison Square Garden, a booking Alexander Volkov said makes the belt look like it has lost its meaning.
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Pereira isn’t the only one with questions about his headspace. Israel Adesanya, who knows Pereira better than almost anyone, has said he worries about Pereira’s mindset going into the Pavlovich fight, per MMA Junkie.
Quick take
I respect a fighter who answers the question straight, and Pereira just did. He admitted the size problem out loud, which most guys moving up would never do before fight night. But announcing your exit ramp seven weeks before you face one of the hardest punchers at heavyweight is a choice. Pavlovich doesn’t need extra motivation, and now he knows Pereira has already pictured losing. As for walking right back into a light heavyweight title shot, that’s Pereira’s assumption, and nobody at the UFC has signed off on it publicly. The real answer gets written Dec. 12.
