Alex Pereira is trimming down to fight one of the hardest punchers at heavyweight. In a long sit-down with Ariel Helwani, clipped and posted to X on Wednesday, Pereira said he plans to come in around 110 kg for his matchup with Sergei Pavlovich, which he put at “probably like 240-something,” about 10 pounds under where he’s been. His reasoning was simple. “I just feel that I’ve gotta be a little lighter.”
The weight talk was the headline, but Pereira covered a lot of ground. He admitted he thought about dropping back to light heavyweight after missing out on a title shot, then decided against it because, in his words, he’s “a very competitive guy.” The door to 205 stays cracked, though. “If it doesn’t work, I’m not gonna be the guy trying to go too much with these heavyweights if I have a different option,” he said.
Pavlovich didn’t come out of nowhere for him, either. Pereira said that during his camp for Ciryl Gane, a training partner who had fought Pavlovich and lost was in the room, and the word around the gym was that the Russian “is a machine.” Pereira said he’d already planned to call Pavlovich out on the mic, so when the UFC offered the fight, it wasn’t surprising. “Ok, let’s go.” He also said he wants Gane again.
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The chin, the commentary and the refs
Pereira had no patience for anyone questioning his durability. “First of all, the fools that say I cannot take a punch, I can call them a bunch of idiots,” he said. He explained that the shots he absorbed landed early, when his opponent was fresh, and that plenty of fighters go out cold from blows like that. He stayed up and kept fighting.
He also explained why he’s wondered aloud whether the UFC shapes Daniel Cormier’s commentary. Pereira said he once asked Cormier whether winning an interim belt would make him the real champ if Tom didn’t come back, and Cormier told him no, maybe after one or two more. Then, Pereira said, Cormier started talking up Hokit as a champion if he won. “This is a guy that has influence,” Pereira said. He added that moments like that are “when I start thinking something’s going on.”
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On officiating, he wants referees to study the card before fight night, learning who has a history of eye pokes, low blows and extra shots after the finish. He compared it to legal work: “Just like when you’re a lawyer, you’ve gotta keep studying the law because it gets updated.”
Pereira was blunt about the end of his career, too. “I don’t want to be a stepping stone for nobody to be going up,” he said. He added that his finances, his kids’ future and the institute he built are taken care of: “We’re all settled, so I have nothing to prove anymore.”
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The weight cut is the smartest thing he said. A Pereira who’s 10 pounds lighter is faster on the counter left hook and quicker getting out of the pocket, and against Pavlovich, a guy who ends fights with his first clean right hand, that speed matters more than any extra mass. The referee idea deserves real attention too. A ref who knows a fighter piles on after the knockdown is a ref who steps in on time, and nobody should be absorbing three or four free shots on the canvas because the third man in the cage didn’t do his homework.
