Michel Pereira has his first fight booked since leaving the UFC, and he’s going back to the country that sent him there. Z Fight Night, the promotion founded by former UFC featherweight title challenger Chan Sung Jung, announced Monday that Pereira (32-15, 2 NC) will face In Su Hwang (9-2) in a middleweight bout at ZFN 5 on Saturday, Dec. 19, in Incheon. The card streams live on UFC Fight Pass. (Hwang’s name has appeared as In Soo and In-soo in some reports.)
Pereira, 33, became a free agent after a unanimous decision loss to Shara Magomedov at UFC Baku in June. He had already finished out his previous contract with a split decision over Zachary Reese in Houston in February, then came back on a one-fight deal for Magomedov. That night didn’t go his way, and it didn’t go cleanly either. Magomedov repeatedly grabbed Pereira’s hair in grappling exchanges, and referee Herb Dean never took a point. Bloody Elbow reported that Pereira planned to appeal the result and blamed Dean for failing to enforce the rules, arguing the outcome was “compromised.” All three judges scored it for Magomedov anyway, and Pereira was off the roster by July.
He leaves with a 10-6 UFC record, and the shape of it matters. Eight of those 10 wins came in one streak, Bloody Elbow noted, a run that included Khaos Williams, Santiago Ponzinibbio, Michał Oleksiejczuk and Niko Price. MMA Mania noted that after moving up to middleweight he stacked three straight first-round finishes and looked like a real contender. Then Anthony Hernandez broke him down and stopped him in the fifth round in 2024. Reese was the only win that followed. Four losses in his last five UFC fights is what got him here.
This is his first regional fight since he signed with the UFC in 2019, though Korea is familiar ground. Before the Octagon, Pereira went 3-0 under the Road FC banner, all three by knockout.
Hwang won’t make it a homecoming party. The 32-year-old is a former Road FC middleweight champion who took his shot on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2025 and lost a decision to Paddy McCorry. He bounced back in May by headlining ZFN 4 and stopping Bellator and PFL veteran Alex Polizzi in the third round. Seven of his nine pro wins are knockouts. He hasn’t seen Pereira’s level of opposition, but a win here is the kind of name that gets a Contender Series alum a second look from the UFC.
My read: this fight answers one specific thing. If Pereira’s slide was about the caliber of middleweights he was meeting in the UFC, he should look like himself against Hwang, loose and dangerous and a step ahead. If he looks flat against a guy who lost on the Contender Series 18 months ago, the problem travels with him. I’d lean toward the first. There’s something right about Pereira resetting in the same country where Road FC fans watched him knock out three straight opponents, on a card put together by the Korean Zombie, a fighter who knows a little about having to rebuild. But Hwang hits, he’s fighting at home, and he needs this one more than anybody else on Dec. 19.
