Alex Pereira has his heavyweight escape hatch picked out before he even steps into the cage with Sergei Pavlovich. Speaking with Ariel Helwani on Uncrowned, the former two-division champion said that if Pavlovich beats him at UFC 335 in December, he’s leaving heavyweight and going back to light heavyweight.
Pereira told Helwani he expects to win and stay right where he is. He didn’t duck the hypothetical, though, and his answer was blunt.
“Pavlovich is a dangerous guy. I’ve always said this. I want to win, but I can lose too. If I lose, I’m not going to stay at heavyweight. Everyone knows I’m lighter than all those heavyweights. So I’m not going to keep trying to match their strength when I could do something else and be better off.”
This whole conversation exists because of UFC Freedom 250. Pereira showed up there chasing something nobody in UFC history has pulled off, a title in a third weight class, and Ciryl Gane ended that night by knocking him out in Round 2. That’s a brutal heavyweight welcome for a guy whose entire reputation is built on being the one who does the knocking out.
Instead of retreating, Pereira jumped right back into the deep end. UFC 335, announced just weeks ago, has Charles Oliveira and Diego Lopes headlining for the BMF title, with Pereira vs. Pavlovich in the co-main slot. That’s a stacked December card, and the co-main might be the fight people actually stay up for.
Pavlovich is about as rough a rebound assignment as heavyweight offers. He walks forward constantly and fights like every punch is supposed to be the last one. Yahoo Sports framed the matchup as a genuine coin flip, pointing to Pereira’s footwork, lateral movement and leg kicks as the tools he needs to slow Pavlovich’s march. Either man can end it with the first clean shot he lands.
The stakes are simple. A second straight heavyweight loss would drop Pereira to the back of the line in that division. Back at 205, Yahoo noted, he could walk into a title shot depending on how light heavyweight shakes out in the meantime. His comments also settle the other worry floating around, because he’s clearly planning to keep fighting no matter what happens in December.
I love this answer. Most fighters talk like losing is a physical impossibility right up until it happens, and then they vanish for a year. Pereira said out loud that he can lose, admitted the size gap everybody has been whispering about, and still signed up to stand in front of one of the hardest punchers on the planet. That’s the opposite of ducking. If he beats Pavlovich, the three-belt dream is back on the table. If he doesn’t, light heavyweight gets its most dangerous former king back, and the guys at 205 should be rooting a lot harder for Pavlovich than they’d ever admit.
