Alex Pereira has a rooting interest in Saturday’s heavyweight title fight, and it isn’t Josh Hokit.
“Eyeing a rematch, Alex Pereira wants Ciryl Gane to get the win over Josh Hokit at #UFC334,” MMA Junkie posted on X on Friday, one day before the card. The post links to a clip of Pereira. The math behind the pick is simple. If Hokit walks out with the belt, the fight Pereira wants loses the thing that makes it worth chasing.
Pereira is a former two-time UFC light heavyweight champion and a former middleweight champion. He is the ninth fighter in UFC history to win titles in two divisions, and before any of that he held Glory belts at middleweight and light heavyweight at the same time. Now he’s a heavyweight, sitting No. 6 in the Knockout Daily rankings with a 13-4 record out of Teixeira MMA & Fitness.
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Gane is the man with the gold. The Frenchman (14-2, MMA Factory) is the first French champion in UFC history, a former Muay Thai fighter who came over through TKO, where he also held the heavyweight title. Both he and Pereira last fought on June 14.
Hokit, meanwhile, has spent fight week making sure nobody forgets his name. In a back-and-forth with Daniel Cormier about whether his mouth is helping or hurting him, he said: “You fought Jon Jones for $50K. I’m not going through that. I don’t want anyone to lowball me. If I gotta crack a few eggs to make an omlette, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
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That’s a fighter answering a question straight, and I respect it. He also showed up to Friday’s weigh-in acting “drunk” again, per Championship Rounds, which reported he passed out on the scale and stayed down for over a minute. It was a bit, but it went on long enough that somebody had to wonder.
Pereira’s own road doesn’t wait on Saturday’s result. He’s booked against Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335 on Dec. 12, on the Oliveira vs. Lopes card. Beat Pavlovich, and a Gane win on Nov. 14 lines up the title rematch he’s openly asking for. Lose to Pavlovich, and it won’t matter much who he was cheering for.
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