I've said this before, but it bears repeating because what Alex Pereira has done over the last nearly three years in the UFC is some of the most remarkable stuff in the promotion's nearly 31-year-history.

Pereira, the UFC's light heavyweight champion, will defend his belt against Khalil Rountree Jr. in the main event of UFC 307 on Oct. 5 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. A month and a day after that fight, on Nov. 6, Pereira will celebrate his third anniversary as a UFC fighter. In that time, he's got two wins over Jiri Prochazka and victories over Jamahal Hill, Jan Blachowicz, Israel Adesanya and Sean Strickland. Each of those men either was, would be or had been a UFC champion.

In his nearly three years in the UFC, Pereira is 8-1 with six knockouts and won the title at middleweight and light heavyweight. To give you a comparison of how incredible what he's done in such a short period of time is, consider what these five UFC fighters had done in the first three full years with the promotion:

• Jon Jones debuted at UFC 87 on Aug. 9, 2008, by winning a decision over Andre Gusmao. Three full years later, Jones was the UFC's light heavyweight champion and was 8-1 with a win over Mauricio "Shogun" Rua. Jones, remember, is the greatest fighter in MMA history.

• George St-Pierre debuted in the UFC at UFC 46 on Jan. 31, 2004, with a decision win over Karo Parisyan. Three years later, St-Pierre was 7-1 in the UFC and 2-0 outside the promotion. He'd defeated Matt Hughes at UFC 65 on Nov. 18, 2006, to win the belt. In those three years, he had wins over Hughes, B.J. Penn and Sean Sherk.

• Anderson Silva knocked out Chris Leben at a UFC Fight Night in Las Vegas in 49 seconds on June 28, 2006. Less than four months later, Silva knocked out Rich Franklin to win the UFC middleweight title. In his first three years in the promotion, Silva was 9-0 and had two title fight wins over Franklin.

• Ronda Rousey won the Strikeforce title and thus was apppointed UFC's bantamweight title when women's divisions were added to the UFC in 2013. Rousey made her UFC debut on Feb. 23, 2013. She was 6-1 after three years in the UFC, defeating Miesha Tate.

• Demetrious Johnson debuted in the UFC at UFC 126 on Feb. 5, 2011, as a bantamweight because the UFC didn't have a flyweight division at the time. Three years later, Johnson was 7-1-1 and had no wins over anyone who'd held a UFC belt.

Those are some of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport and none of them clearly surpasses what Pereira has done. He's gotten a lot of praise for his accomplishments, but it's not nearly been enough. He's taken fights on short notice to save shows and he's become one of the sport's can't miss stars.

Pereira spoke following his KO of Prochazka at UFC 303 on June 29 about moving to heavyweight and chasing the opportunity to become the first fighter in UFC history to hold belts in three weight classes. So far, UFC CEO/president Dana White hasn't been interested in seeing that.

But on Tuesday, Pereira went on social media to say he'd be interesting in fighting du Plessis after Rountree. if Pereira goes back to middleweight to fight du Plessis, the problem will be solved for White. There's almost no way Pereira could drop that weight from 205 to 185 to fight at middleweight and then add on the weight to fight at around 240 pounds to be able to successfully compete at heavyweight. Remember, he's already 37 and will be more than halfway to 38 if and when another middleweight bout would feasibly take place.

A lot has to happen before we get near there. Pereira, of course, needs to defeat Rountree Jr. Then, since White has already said du Plessis will defend against Strickland first, that bout must happen. Once it does, then and only then could a theoretical Pereira-du Plessis fight occur. And that assumes that du Plessis would be Strickland, which is no guarantee.

But if the fight does happen, well, it would capture the attention of the world. In the UFC's current pound-for-pound rankings, Pereira is No. 2 behind lightweight champ Islam Makhachev, while du Plessis is No. 5. If both fighters win their bouts, there is no reason to believe they'd drop in the rankings and some reason to believe they'd have a chance to move up by the time they squared off.

Boxer Roy Jones Jr. moved up from light heavyweight -- 175 pounds in boxing -- to win a heavyweight championship. He then dropped down to defeat Antonio Tarver at light heavyweight eight months later. He didn't look great in that bout and many thought Tarver deserved the win. So they rematched and Jones again cut to 175, this time another seven months later. He got knocked out by Tarver and then in his next fight by Glen Johnson.

Tarver and Johnson certainly deserve their credit for beating one of the sport's all-time legends, but Jones moving down and shedding all that muscle clearly had an impact upon his performances.

If Pereira defeated Rountree and du Plessis, a great aragument could be made that he deserves to be pound-for-pound No. 1. If he goes up and wins a heavyweight title, not only will that argument remain in effect, but he'd also be making history that may not be equaled for years, if not decades.

It's good to have options, and Poatan has plenty of them. 

It's unlikely, though, we'll ever see him at heavyweight if he chooses to go back to middleweight, even if for only one fight.