Alex Pereira’s Lifestyle Is ‘Catching Up To Him’ Following Ankalaev Loss
Alex Pereira’s defeat to Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 has raised question marks over whether he has too many distractions outside of the fight game.
Pereira suffered his first defeat at light heavyweight, as Ankalaev secured a unanimous decision win to become the UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. The defeat put an end to Pereira’s five-fight win streak, as it was his first loss since getting stopped by Israel Adesanya at UFC 287 at middleweight. Although Pereira is a two-weight world champion, the defeat has damaged his hopes of securing a fight against the UFC Heavyweight Champion Jon Jones.
There was speculation that Pereira could move up to heavyweight to try and make history by winning a belt in a third weight class. Daniel Cormier questioned whether Pereira was in the right frame of mind heading into the Ankalaev fight. The Brazilian has been seen traveling around the world, having been spotted Australian at a Drake concert.
Pereira’s Lifestyle
“This dude (Pereira) was seen in Australia last week still, and he was shaking the hand of Drake as Drake went on stage for his concert. One, Drake constantly loses millions of dollars betting on people, so you kind of don’t want Drake to bet on you because he doesn’t have the greatest track record for winning. But what is Pereira still doing in Australia? He fights in two weeks! Ankalaev’s already here, he’s in Vegas, I ran into him at the UFC PI last week. He is honestly so locked in, ready to win this fight against Alex Pereira,” Cormier stated
Meanwhile, Pereira has also shifted his focus to life outside of the UFC. He talked up a fight against the Unified Heavyweight Champion Oleksandr Usyk in a boxing fight. Dana White and the Saudis’ decision to launch a new boxing league has raised speculation that a fight could be made this year. Pereira even went so far as to state that he was eyeing a possible boxing bout in September. Although White says that MMA fighters will stick to their sport for now, it has happened in the past, when Conor McGregor crossed over to box Floyd Mayweather in 2017.
That has created the narrative that Pereira may have overlooked Ankalaev, who is one of the most dangerous fighters in the division. Before the fight against Pereira, he was undefeated in 13 fights. He had secured 11 wins, a draw, and a no-contest. Henry Cejudo, the two-weight UFC Champion, had his say on the matter.
Cejudo Reacts
He felt that there was simply too much background noise from Pereira’s life outside of the Octagon, meaning that the focus had to change. Alex still has the opportunity to set things right by securing a win in the rematch. However, in order to do that, he must ensure that his life outside of the Octagon is in the right place.
“I think Alex Pereira’s lifestyle is finally kind of catching up to him, it’s finally catching up to him. The travel, the ‘chama’, the lot of the skits and a lot of stuff that he’s actually doing, it’s really not doing him any service. His body looked a little different, dude. He looked a little pudgier, he looked a little thicker in the face going in, but then we have to credit Magomed Ankalaev,” Cejudo said
Find all the latest boxing news and MMA breaking updates on boxingnews.com.
