Alex Pereira is moving up to heavyweight, and it sounds like he plans to stay there.
“Poatan” entered the UFC as a huge middleweight, winning and losing the belt before moving up to light heavyweight where he became a two-time 205 pound champion. Now he’s relinquished that title to move up to heavyweight where he faces Ciryl Gane for a third title at the UFC White House event on June 11th.
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Dropping a title is a big deal, but not for Pereira who says his new UFC contract doesn’t change financially if he’s not holding a belt. You’d think that would give him some flexibility to move around even more, but according to Alex he plans on staying at heavyweight, win or lose.
“I could make light heavyweight again, but I don’t think there’s anything new for me there,” Pereira said on the Ariel Helwani Show. “Many guys just go on the heat of the moment, they jump up a weight class and they lose, they come back to the weight division. but I’ve been expressing for a long time that I’ve been wanting to fight at heavyweight. I think I’ll stay there.”
That’s sad news for Magomed Ankalaev, who no doubt wanted a rubber match against Pereira after the two went 1-1 over 2025. As for how “Poatan” thinks his power will convert now that he’s competing two weight classes up from his starting weight in the UFC?
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“I made all the history at middleweight, light heavyweight. I’ve been listening to my body, seeing how my body has been reacting,” Pereira said. “I know some guys are going to say, ‘He doesn’t have heavyweight size.’ But I feel like I hit like a heavyweight. I have trained with enough heavyweights. I weigh about 245 pounds right now, so I think this is a great opportunity for me to keep making history.”
One could argue that there’s less interesting fights at heavyweight than there were at light heavyweight. But Pereira still anticipates that UFC will manage to sort out their issues with Jon Jones, who is currently seeking his release from the promotion.
“I believe it happens because he would have to be released from the UFC, and I don’t think the UFC is going to release him anytime soon,” he said. “If he wants to fight, who’s going to be against him? It’s going to be against me.”
