Alex Pereira isn’t lacing up boxing gloves anytime soon, and he did the math out loud.
“Well, with 7 fights left on my UFC contract and being 39, it’s kind of impossible,” Pereira said in an interview with Fred Talks Fighting, in a clip the account @DovySimuMMA shared on X on Oct. 11.
Notice the “kind of.” The door is mostly shut. Pereira didn’t bolt it.
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The Brazilian turned 39 on July 7 and sits at 13-4 in MMA. He’s a former two-time UFC light heavyweight champion and a former middleweight champion, and he now fights at heavyweight, where he’s No. 6 in the Knockout Daily rankings. He also holds the No. 10 spot in the UFC men’s pound-for-pound rankings. His last fight was June 14.
The boxing chatter has a real foundation. Before he ever kicked anybody for money, Pereira reportedly went 25-3 as an amateur boxer in Brazil, with every one of those wins coming by knockout, according to his Wikipedia page. A guy with that left hook is going to get asked about boxing every week for the rest of his career. That’s the tax for hitting that hard.
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The question picked up steam this week because of his corner. Pereira’s coach, Plinio Cruz, made his Misfits Boxing debut on Oct. 10 and won by second-round TKO, per clips shared on X by Championship Rounds and Spinnin Backfist. Cruz also tore into Chase DeMoor on the mic, and a Happy Punch clip showed Pereira enjoying every word of it.
So the coach gets to box. The fighter has a contract.
Pereira has also been busy as an unofficial promoter. He questioned on X why Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit got the UFC 334 main event slot over the women’s fight, which tells you he’s paying attention to UFC cards even when he’s not on them.
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He’ll be on the next one. Pereira faces Sergei Pavlovich at heavyweight at UFC 335 on Dec. 12, on the card headlined by Oliveira vs. Lopes. Pavlovich isn’t a boxing match, but two heavyweights who hit like that might be the closest thing the UFC sells to one.
