Alex Pereira vs. Sergei Pavlovich is official for UFC 335, and both heavyweights have already said their piece. Neither one used many words.
The fight lands in the co-main event on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, scheduled for five rounds. UFC News posted the card on X, with Charles Oliveira and Diego Lopes fighting for the BMF belt in the main event. Championship Rounds also flagged the booking, citing Nina Drama.
Pereira’s response came on Instagram as an AI-generated promo video. Yahoo Sports reported the caption as “See you soon.” Pavlovich answered on his own account four days later with “Back in action soon.” That’s two heavyweights who between them have knocked out a lot of people and apparently share one shared position on press conferences. Spinnin Backfist also posted a clip of Pavlovich it said shows he’s ready for Poatan.
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Where they stand
Pereira (13-4), the former two-division UFC champion, is coming off the first real setback of his heavyweight run. Ciryl Gane stopped him by second-round TKO at UFC Freedom 250 in June, which was Pereira’s UFC heavyweight debut. So this isn’t a curiosity booking anymore. He’s taking a second swing in the division right after getting turned away in the first one.
He has been posting from camp, too. On Monday Pereira shared sparring footage with his longtime coach Glover Teixeira, and MMA personality Dovy pointed out on X that it was the first time he’d seen Pereira wearing headgear in sparring. Read into that what you want.
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Pavlovich (21-3) arrives on a three-fight winning streak. His most recent outing was a 39-second knockout of Tallison Teixeira at UFC Macau, and that was his first stoppage win since April 2023. For a guy whose entire reputation is built on ending fights early, that’s a long gap, and he closed it about as fast as possible.
The early money
MMA Fighting reported that Pavlovich opened as the betting favorite. Coming off the Gane loss, Pereira is the underdog in a fight against a man who hits like a truck, which is not a sentence many people expected to type two years ago.
Jorge Masvidal is also weighing in. Sportskeeda ran a piece with Masvidal pointing to what he called an “abnormal” skill Pavlovich has that he believes will give Pereira major problems.
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Quick take
I like this fight a lot. Pereira could have gone back down to light heavyweight after Gane and nobody would have blinked, and instead he’s taking a heavy-handed Russian on a winning streak over five rounds in Vegas. The oddsmakers making him the underdog feels right on paper, because Pavlovich’s power travels and Pereira just got stopped at this weight. But Poatan has made a career out of one left hand changing every line on the board, and Pavlovich has never been shy about standing right in front of people. Somebody is probably going to sleep on Dec. 12. My only complaint is the promo work. One AI video and a four-word caption is a little too close to booking a fight by emoji for my taste.
