Dana White has heard Alex Pereira’s complaint, and he isn’t buying it. The UFC CEO pushed back on Pereira’s accusations that the promotion manipulates its matchmaking, with NDTV Sports reporting White’s response on Oct. 14 under his line “We Don’t Operate Like That.”
The reporting available to Knockout Daily doesn’t spell out exactly what Pereira said or where he said it, so I won’t fill in the blanks for him. Here is what we know. Pereira alleged some form of manipulation in how the UFC builds fights, and White denied it. The claim is unproven, and nothing in the available reporting offers evidence to support it.
Pereira’s résumé is why the boss answered personally. He’s 13-4 in MMA, a former UFC middleweight champion and a two-time light heavyweight champion. He’s also the ninth fighter in UFC history to win titles in two divisions, and before that he held Glory belts at middleweight and light heavyweight at the same time. He now competes at heavyweight, where he sits at No. 6 in the Knockout Daily rankings (Cagefile data). The Meta UFC rankings had him at No. 4 at heavyweight and No. 10 pound-for-pound as of September. His last fight was June 14, 2026.
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His star power is hard to argue with. Bruce Buffer said this week that Pereira, Conor McGregor and Jon Jones are the only fighters who deserve the “The one the only” introduction, according to Helen Yee. When a fighter at that level questions how fights get made, it gets a reply from the top.
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The timing makes this more awkward than the usual contract grumbling. Pereira’s next fight is a UFC booking against Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335, a card headlined by Oliveira vs. Lopes. Fans are already deep into it. Some have started circulating AI-generated edits of Pereira getting knocked out by Pavlovich, which says plenty about how seriously people take that matchup.
I’d be surprised if this changes the booking. A complaint about matchmaking is a strange thing to carry into a fight you’ve already signed. The cleanest way for Pereira to win the argument is on Dec. 12, against a heavyweight nobody would call a soft touch.
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