Alex Pereira got stopped by Ciryl Gane on the White House lawn in June, and the internet sprinted to write his heavyweight obituary. Too small. Too slow. Go back to light heavyweight, where you belong. Then Stipe Miocic, the guy with six UFC heavyweight title fights on his record, sat down with Athlon Sports (via Casino.org) and calmly told everybody to relax.
“I think he can win a third belt,” Miocic said. “I won a belt at 38. I think he’ll be fine. He’s tough.”
I’m with Stipe. And the reason I trust this take comes down to who’s saying it.
Miocic has never been a hype merchant. In the same interview, asked about Josh Hokit’s whole routine (the fake vomiting at weigh-ins, the altercations, the Michelle Obama insult on the White House card), he gave it the polite dad shrug. “I don’t like the whole trash talk side of things and the character thing,” he said. He also said Hokit is good at it and he gets it, which is generous, but you can tell the man would rather watch paint dry than a staredown. So when a guy that allergic to fluff says Pereira is a future three-division champ, that’s a fight read. Nobody is selling you a pay-per-view here.
He’s also not naive about the business. Talking about Tom Aspinall vacating the heavyweight belt after the eye injury from his UFC 321 defense against Gane, Miocic said, “The UFC’s never happy with anyone unless they’re making them a ton of money. So forget about them.” That’s a retired champ who knows exactly how the machine works, picking Pereira on what he sees in the cage.
The Gane loss was a first draft
Let’s be honest about what happened in June. Pereira moved up for his heavyweight debut and got a title shot against a guy who is now the undisputed champion and headlines UFC 334 against Hokit. Losing to Gane in your first fight in a new division counts as a loss, sure. Treating it as a final verdict is silly. Rocky lost the first Apollo fight too, and nobody told him to go back to collecting for the loan shark.
Miocic said as much. “That was his first time fighting in the big boy class, and I think he’s shown he’s ready to do it. He knows what to expect.”
That last sentence is the whole argument. The first trip up a weight class is where you learn how heavy the shots feel and how different the clinch gets when the other guy outweighs you. Pereira has that information now. He didn’t in June.
And look at the résumé he’s carrying in. Middleweight champion. Two-time light heavyweight champion. 2024 Fighter of the Year for an active title run that most champions would never sign up for. His last two light heavyweight wins came against Magomed Ankalaev and Khalil Rountree Jr. He’s coached by Glover Teixeira, which is why Miocic added, “He’s got the right coaches with him to really succeed.”
Miocic even put Pereira ahead of himself. “He’s already won two belts in two weight classes, so I mean, he’s done more than I have. I’ve only won one weight class.” Coming from a guy whose résumé is the measuring stick for heavyweight greatness, that’s an absurdly humble line, and it tells you how high his opinion of Poatan actually is.
Pavlovich is the right test
The UFC didn’t hand Pereira an immediate Gane rematch, and I think that works in his favor. Instead he gets Sergei Pavlovich, a former interim title challenger and a legit knockout artist, in the UFC 335 co-main event in December. BJPenn.com noted that few people expect Pereira to look dominant in that one. Good. That’s precisely why it matters.
A rematch with Gane right away would have been a coin flip with a belt attached. Pavlovich tells us something real. If Pereira can stand in front of a natural heavyweight who hits that hard and walk out with his first win in the division, the Gane loss starts looking like a speed bump. If he can’t, we learn that too.
The one wrinkle is Pereira himself. He’s hinted that he could drop back to light heavyweight to cement his legacy, even if things don’t go his way at heavyweight. I hope he doesn’t rush that exit. Becoming the first triple champion in UFC history is the kind of swing that gets talked about for decades, and he’s one competitive heavyweight win from being right back in the mix.
Miocic, for what it’s worth, wrapped his whole case in eight words. “He’s a tough dude, and he’ll be fine,” he said.
Here’s the calendar. Gane defends against Hokit at UFC 334. A month later, Pereira and Pavlovich close out the UFC’s 2026 schedule at UFC 335. Somewhere in between, Miocic could get his own Hall of Fame news, with BJPenn.com reporting a possible 2027 induction announcement at the upcoming UFC Cleveland card. If Pereira lands the big right hand on Pavlovich in December, Stipe’s speech should include a line about calling this one.
