Alex Pereira says the UFC put two options in front of him for his heavyweight run, a fight with Ciryl Gane for the belt or a rebound against Josh Hokit, and then booked neither. He got Pavlovich instead, and he wasn’t thrilled about it at first.
Pereira laid it out in comments Ariel Helwani posted to X on Wednesday. “What got me more upset at that time was because they told me that I was possibly going to fight Gane for the belt or fight Hokit. And then none of that happened,” Pereira said.
He was blunt about which of the three he’d have preferred coming off a defeat. “Coming from a loss, fighting Hokit would be much, much easier for me than fighting Pavlovich, who’s supposed to be a harder fight,” he said, then repeated the point for anyone who missed it: “Hokit would be a much easier fight for me.”
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Fighters calling an opponent the easy option out loud is rarer than it should be. Pereira did it twice in one answer.
The grudge didn’t last. Pereira said he sat down with UFC executive Hunter Campbell, the two talked it through and cleared the air, and he was fine with it after that. He also sounds like he’s warmed to the matchup on film, calling Pavlovich “a little more dangerous opponent” while adding that, looking at it technically, he now sees it as “actually also a very good fight for me.”
The Hokit problem
In a second clip Helwani posted minutes later, Pereira turned his attention to Hokit’s apparent path toward Gane, and he isn’t sold. He gave Hokit credit for the winning streak, then took the credit right back by pointing at the quality of the names on it.
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“If you see the last fights, he was actually getting very tired. Those guys aren’t even in a good moment in the UFC, and he was already getting tired,” Pereira said. “So imagine a five-round fight. Unless he really changed from the last fight to this one, it’s gonna be hard.”
That’s a heavyweight scouting report delivered by a guy who stands to benefit if Hokit falls short, so weigh it accordingly. It’s also a fair question. Gane moves like a light heavyweight, and 25 minutes with him tends to expose anyone who fades late.
Ankalaev still isn’t letting it go
Pereira’s week had noise from his old division, too. Magomed Ankalaev, in comments to Bostanov MMA shared by Championship Rounds, called Pereira’s win over him “a lucky punch” and suggested Pereira’s camp knew he was hurt. “If he hadn’t known I was injured, I don’t think it would have ended so quickly,” Ankalaev said, adding that his business with Pereira “isn’t settled at all.”
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Pereira, meanwhile, has spent the week posting training footage, shadowboxing with his sons, and filming his new Lamborghini Aventador SVJ while a neighbor yelled at him. Fight camp looks normal.
My take: Pereira got the tougher fight, griped about it honestly, then talked it out with the boss and took it anyway. That’s the right order. If he beats Pavlovich, his read on Hokit’s cardio stops sounding like sour grapes and starts sounding like the opening pitch for a Gane title fight he was already promised once.
