Alex Pereira hit five years in the UFC on November 6, and he marked it the way a guy with this résumé should, by posting the receipts.
Pereira went to Instagram and reshared a graphic first put out by MMA On Point that runs through everything he’s done since his debut. His caption opened by noting it had been five years since his UFC start, then got earnest. “Nothing came easy. Every achievement took hard work, sacrifice, and faith in God. Never give up on your dreams,” he wrote, before adding, “If I was able to change my story, you can too. Thank you to everyone who has been by my side. CHAMA!”
It all started at UFC 268 at Madison Square Garden in November 2021, when he flattened Andreas Michailidis with a flying knee in the second round. Not a bad way to say hello.
The numbers
Since that night, Pereira has fought 13 times in the Octagon and gone 10-3, which puts him at 13-4 overall in MMA. He holds middleweight and light heavyweight gold on his résumé, and he got both faster than anyone in company history: 736 days, seven UFC fights, 11 pro MMA bouts total.
He won his first UFC belt in just his fourth Octagon appearance and his eighth pro fight. Only Brock Lesnar got to a UFC title quicker.
Then came 2024, when he defended the 205-pound title three times in 175 days, beating Jamahal Hill, Jiří Procházka and Khalil Rountree Jr. That wiped out Ronda Rousey’s old UFC record of 189 days. Most champions take 175 days to pick a date and a sponsor.
He did drop the light heavyweight belt to Magomed Ankalaev. He got it back at UFC 320 with an 80-second knockout, which is about as emphatic as a correction gets.
The rest of the ledger, per the graphic and Yahoo Sports’ rundown:
- Five knockouts in light heavyweight title fights, tied with Chuck Liddell for the most ever
- Six knockouts in UFC title fights overall, second only to Anderson Silva
- Seven Performance of the Night bonuses
- Eight numbered UFC events headlined, UFC 300 among them
- A fight at the White House, which a small group of fighters can claim
The opponent list is what gets me. Pereira has fought six men who were or became undisputed UFC champions: Sean Strickland, Israel Adesanya, Jan Blachowicz, Procházka, Hill and Ankalaev. That’s a murderers’ row, and he walked through most of it in under five years.
What’s next
Pereira is booked against Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335.
My take: a kickboxer who arrived with eight MMA fights and a reputation built in another sport had no business ending up tied with Liddell and chasing Anderson Silva’s numbers. He did it by saying yes to everybody, fast and often, and he didn’t let losing the belt slow him down either. Five years in, the most reliable thing in the UFC is still a Pereira main event, and Pavlovich is the next guy who gets to find out why.
