Alex Pereira’s coach is not ruling out an eventual move to heavyweight.
For now, Middleweight Champion Alex Pereira is focused on his upcoming fight with Israel Adesanya.
It will be Pereira (7-1 MMA) vs Adesanya (23-2 MMA) battling it out at the main event at UFC 287 which takes place on Saturday, April 8th at UFC 287 at the Miami-Dade Arena in Miami, Florida.
It will be the fourth meeting of the two fighters. ‘Poatan’ defeated ‘The Last Stylebender’ twice in kickboxing, and then Pereira followed that up with a technical knockout win in the Octagon at UFC 281 in November of 2022, awarding him the middleweight belt.
The much anticipated rematch will see Pereira defend his title for the first time.
In an interview with ‘MMA Junkie‘ Glover Teixeira spoke about his fighter and his upcoming match-up with Adesanya:
“Alex, man, he’s focused. He knows the way we won the last fight – he waited too much to pull the trigger. He just needs to be more alert in this fight, because Izzy, he’s fast. He moves a lot, and that’s what we’ve been working on. Be alert, be focused and when the opportunity comes, just take the fight to finish.”
Continuing, Teixeira said:
“He is a finisher. He can finish a fight at any given second. He’s a powerhouse. The guy hits so hard and he’s just got to pressure more and get it done, like he did in the fifth round. Of course, he knows not to just go crazy and try to finish the fight in the first round. But be more alert.”
When asked about Alex Pereira moving weights, Teixeira continued:
“Eventually he will. We talk about it. He can fight anywhere. Look at this guy. He can fight in any division. He can fight in Heavyweight, Light Heavyweight – he’s big.”
Concluding, the coach said:
“Eventually I think he’s going to want to do that because the weight cut is a big cut for him. He doesn’t complain. He just keeps going and doing it well, because he likes to be 185, and he felt good. But he can do 205 for sure and eventually it might happen because if he goes up, there are super fights, big fights. I think it’s a possibility.”
Will you be watching UFC 287? Do you think Alex Pereira can go 4-0 against Israel Adesanya or are you betting on ‘Stylebender’ taking back the title?
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