Alex Pereira is leaving an opening to face new light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill.
Alex Pereira is getting ready for his very first UFC title defense later this year. Pereira burst onto the scene in the UFC back in November 2021 after a very successful kickboxing career. The most notable fact about him when he joined the UFC was that he held two kickboxing wins over the middleweight champion at the time, Israel Adesanya. Pereira began to win and looked as if he was on a crash course with Adesanya.
Those two finally met in the main event of UFC 281 in November. Pereira came out on top with a fifth-round knockout over Adesanya, solidifying his position as the best in the division and securing his very first UFC title. Now with three wins over Adesanya in both kickboxing and mixed martial arts it was unclear whether or not the UFC would set up an immediate rematch. It turns out they were interested in that fight and the fourth installment of Pereira versus Adesanya will be going down on April 8 at UFC 287.
Alex Pereira is setting up a fallback scenario in case Adesanya can’t make their next fight
Pereira spoke recently in an interview with ESPN about how he felt that Adesanya was in an uncertain place in his career. He was excepting the rematch because that is what the UFC wants but is not 100 percent certain that it will be going down as scheduled. He is open to a replacement fight in the event that Adesanya cannot make it for any reason.
“If the UFC wants leading up for this fight with Israel, if God forbid he breaks his nail and cannot fight they can put Jamahal Hill on standby for a light heavyweight fight on the same night, he will do it no problem,” he said through a translator.
Hill’s last fight was in January against Glover Teixeira, a good friend and training partner of Pereira. Immediately following Hill’s win he was greeted by Pereira in the cage and there seem to be some animosity between the two. Pereira has discussed moving up to light heavyweight on several different occasions and would gladly welcome the opportunity to do so against Hill and avenge the loss of his mentor.
