Alex Pereira has no interest in a long goodbye. The former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champion said that if his heavyweight run goes sideways, he’ll retire rather than stick around as a measuring stick for younger fighters.
Pereira laid it out during a recent appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show. “You gotta learn how to see when it’s your moment and when it’s not,” he said. “If one day I start losing, if things start not going too good, I don’t want to be a stepping stone for nobody to be going up. I’ll just be focusing on enjoying my time and enjoying my money.”
He also made clear that money won’t be what keeps him in the cage. “We did a very good career plan for me, my kids, my future, my kids’ future, for the institute that I built,” Pereira said. “We’re all settled, so I have nothing to prove anymore.”
That’s a pointed thing to say right now, because the results have turned. Pereira has lost two of his last three. He split a pair of fights with Magomed Ankalaev before leaving 205 pounds in 2025, then moved up and got knocked out by Ciryl Gane in their heavyweight title fight at the White House this past June. The goal hasn’t changed. Pereira is still chasing the history of becoming the UFC’s first-ever three-division champion, and he says that pursuit is what keeps him going, according to Bloody Elbow.
The next step comes in December in Las Vegas, where Pereira meets Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335. A win would be his first at heavyweight and could put him in line for the winner of Gane’s title defense against Josh Hokit. A loss would hand Pereira the first losing skid of his UFC career, and by his own standard he may not have many setbacks left before he calls it.
The age question cuts both ways. Pereira is 39, and heavyweight is the division where guys routinely keep fighting into their forties. Two weight changes may have bought him some extra years. But by his own telling, the calendar won’t make the call. The win column will.
My take: I’ve watched too many legends hang around for the paycheck and get fed to 26-year-olds with something to prove, so I respect a guy who announces the exit plan before he needs it. The uncomfortable math is that the losing he talks about as a someday problem already describes two of his last three fights. That makes Pavlovich the whole ballgame. Beat him and Pereira is one fight from a rematch with the Gane-Hokit winner and a shot at the triple crown. Lose, and Pereira will have to decide whether he’s already become the stepping stone he swore he’d never be. We’ll find out at UFC 335 in December.
