Michael Bisping thinks Alex Pereira’s heavyweight experiment could end his career. The UFC Hall of Famer called Pereira “flat-footed” and said Sergei Pavlovich could retire him at UFC 335, MMA Mania reported.
That’s a heavy prediction about a man who has held UFC gold in two weight classes. Bisping knows how quickly a career closes, though. He knocked out Luke Rockhold at UFC 199 to win the middleweight title, defended it against Dan Henderson at UFC 204, lost it to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 217, and retired after Kelvin Gastelum knocked him out three weeks later. He went into the Hall of Fame in 2019, and now he gets paid to say things like this out loud.
The matchup became official over the weekend. Pereira and Pavlovich will meet in a five-round co-main event on Dec. 12 in Las Vegas, underneath Charles Oliveira vs. Diego Lopes for the BMF belt. Oddsmakers seem to share some of Bisping’s concern, because Pavlovich opened as the betting favorite, MMA Fighting reported.
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Pereira (13-4) sits at No. 6 in the Knockout Daily heavyweight rankings and last fought June 14. He’s a former UFC middleweight champion and a two-time light heavyweight champion, and before any of that he held Glory kickboxing titles at middleweight and light heavyweight. His style was built in kickboxing, and the stance that comes with it is apparently what Bisping thinks gets him hurt against a heavyweight puncher.
Pereira’s public response so far has been short. After the booking dropped, he posted a promo video with the caption “I’ll see you soon.” A couple of days later he released sparring footage against his longtime coach Glover Teixeira, and MMA personality Dovy pointed out on X that it was the first time he’d seen Pereira wearing headgear while sparring. Make of that what you want. Headgear in camp usually means somebody wants his fighter healthy on fight night, which is the correct instinct before you share a cage with a man the books like at heavyweight.
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Pavlovich, for his part, posted a training clip that Spinnin Backfist shared with the caption that he’s ready for Poatan. He didn’t add much more than that.
This is the kind of booking I’ll happily stay up for. One big man who already has the betting public’s trust, one two-division champion trying to prove his power carries up a weight class, and five rounds for either of them to be right. They settle it Dec. 12 at UFC 335.
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