LAS VEGAS — If you listen to the commentary from Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier in the opening minute or so of Alex Pereira’s UFC debut against Andreas Michailidis in the featured preliminary of UFC 268, it’s almost like they knew what was about to come.
Pereira was 3-1 when he signed with the UFC. Though he’d been a Glory middleweight kickboxing champion, play-by-play man Jon Anik said Pereira “had been all in on MMA for the last 18 months,” as the fight got underway.
Israel Adesanya was the UFC middleweight champion at that point, and the two had a history from their days as kickboxers.
The main event at Madison Square Garden that night was a grudge match for the welterweight title between Kamaru Usman and Colby Covington.
Rogan is a fight fan to his core, and one of the reasons he’s so popular with UFC fans is his passion is so evident. And as the bell sounded for Pereira’s debut, Rogan eerily set the stage for the history that was soon to come.
“I cannot overstate how excited I am about the debut of Alex Pereira,” Rogan said. “You want to talk about a guy with ridiculous power? That’s Alex Pereira. How often is a guy the last guy in on the big card on ESPN, [in] the featured [prelim] bout and he’s got four fights? Four MMA fights. That’s what a scary kickboxer Alex Pereira is, perhaps the most feared kickboxer on Earth.”
Hearing those words now, as Pereira has morphed into one of the sport’s greatest stars, days before he attempts to successfully defend his light heavyweight belt for the fourth time just under 11 months against Magomed Ankalaev Saturday in the main event of UFC 313 is simply Reason 1,083,305 why Rogan is so beloved by MMA fans.
But Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier followed Rogan’s comments and was prescient.
“He’s got a bit of a head start,” Cormier said. “If he can capitalize on all the hype and the wins over Izzy in kickboxing, it won’t take him long. But he’s got to show that he can defend and that he can compete in all facets of mixed martial arts.”In the next 39 months, Pereira hasn’t simply lived up to the hype. He’s obliterated all expectations and done what few could have imagined on that cold November night in New York in 2021.
Or, as President George W. Bush once boldly proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished.”
Pereira is arguably the UFC’s biggest star at this point. He’ll headline a pay-per-view on Saturday for the seventh time in his 11th UFC bout.
And as he prepares to face Ankalaev, arguably his biggest challenge yet, he’s peppered with a series of questions that would annoy most fighters.
Ankalaev and a number of his fans have raised questions about why it took Pereira so long to agree to fight him. They intimated he didn’t want to face an elite wrestler, though Ankalaev is also a quality striker.
And they wondered if he’d be able to compete successfully on the ground, though Pereira earned his black belt from Plinio Cruz after his KO win over Jamahal Hill at UFC 300.
“Alex has no reason to be afraid of [going to] the ground,” Cruz said last year when asked about Ankalaev. “If he has to grapple, people who think he’s out of his league are in for a big surprise.”
Pereira is fierce inside the cage and the trail of battered and beaten bodies in his wake is evidence of the power that Rogan spoke about as he made his debut.
He knocked Michailidis out with a vicious flying knee that night. He’s also scored knockouts of Strickland and Adesanya, former middleweight champions, as well as two KOs of Jiri Prochazka and one apiece of Hill and Khailil Rountree Jr.
Pereira stopped Rountree in a rollicking fight at 4:32 of the fourth round at UFC 307 on Oct. 5. Some suggested Rountree’s cardio failed him, but Rountree said it was Pereira’s power.
“It was really the damage from the punches,” Rountree told me a few days after that bout. “The more jabs that happened during the fourth round, I was on like, you know, a rocking boat. I was just fighting hard but I didn’t have much stability.
“It wasn’t a cardio thing. My cardio was great and I’d been training up in the mountains for a long time. The guy has power and when he started to come forward with the jab and other techniques, it really did start to take a toll.”
Ankalaev is from Dagestan, where many of the world’s great wrestlers have come from, and so the assumption is that Ankalaev will simply look to grapple Pereira to the mat.
But Ankalaev is 19-1-1 with a no-contest, and he has 10 wins by KO in his career and none by submission.
His only defeat came in his UFC debut by submission via triangle choke by Paul Craig.
Ankalaev is a dangerous striker himself, so he’s unlikely to panic wrestle. But if he waits too long to get the fight down, he may not get the chance.
Pereira has heard repeatedly about Ankalaev’s grappling over the two-month build-up, but he’s unfazed. He’s smart enough not to commit himself to one style of fighting.
“I’m going to do whatever I feel is best for me in that moment,” Pereira said. “If it goes to the ground and I feel like I need to get up, I’ll do that.
“But maybe I’ll feel the need to play a little on the ground and use my grappling. If I feel that, that’s what I’ll do.”
Former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker told the MMArcade podcast he believes Ankalaev has to quickly make it a ground fight.
That’s respect for the trail of victims Pereira has left in his wake.
He is 12-2 in MMA and 10 of his wins have been by KO.
“I’m going to go Pereira,” Whittaker said. “Like I said, if Ankalaev doesn’t drop level with him within like the first three minutes, I don’t think he makes it out of the first round.
“I don’t want to be striking with that guy, period. He hits like a truck. He’s very comfortable and confident while standing. So, yeah, you have to get him on his back in that first round.”
It’s not like Ankalaev’s stats indicate he’ll take it down at all. He only has a 31-percent takedown accuracy in the UFC and hasn’t had a takedown in seven of his UFC bouts.
“You win by using the techniques that are appropriate for the situation,” Pereira said. “Just because you haven’t seen me do something doesn’t mean I can’t.”
If Ankalaev hopes to lift the belt from Pereira, he’ll need to do more than just rely on assumptions about where the fight will take place. The Dagestani contender may have the pedigree, but Pereira has made a career of silencing skeptics and proving he is far more than just a pulverizing puncher.
Whether on the feet or on the mat, Pereira fights with the cold-blooded precision of a man who never lets doubt creep in.
Pereira isn’t just a devastating knockout artist; he’s a champion who refuses to be put into a box.
When the Octagon door closes on Saturday, the issue won’t be whether Pereira can handle Ankalaev’s wrestling, but whether Ankalaev can handle Pereira’s fight.
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Alex Pereira is 12-2 in MMA and 9-1 in the UFC.