Alex Pereira is not even remotely concerned about naysayers claiming he’s not training hard enough for his upcoming UFC return.
Pereira is set to put his light heavyweight title on the line for the fourth time as he faces Magomed Ankalaev in the main event of UFC 313, taking place on March 8 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
In the lead-up to his fight, “Poatan” has faced intense scrutiny from the MMA community, particularly from UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier, who has questioned his commitment to training. Cormier and others argue that Pereira isn’t taking his upcoming bout seriously, citing his recent travels through Australia and seemingly carefree social media posts as signs of inadequate preparation.
Earlier this month at UFC 312, the Brazilian champion traveled to Sydney to corner Sean Strickland in his title fight against middleweight king Dricus Du Plessis. However, Pereira maintains that his trip to the “Land Down Under” is not a distraction but a commitment he had made well in advance.
In a recent interview with Bloody Elbow, “Poatan” reassured his skeptics that his team traveled with him to Sydney, ensuring he stayed on track with his fight camp. He drew parallels to a similar situation last year when he successfully took a short-notice rematch against Jiří Procházka at UFC 303.
“What I can say to Cormier and a bunch of the other specialists that have been saying that I shouldn’t have gone out there: I’ve been in this situation before,” Pereira said through a translator. “It’s actually been worse before when I was in Australia and had signed up to fight, and didn’t even know I was going to fight. But this time it was all very planned out. I knew what I wanted to do, I took basically my whole team down there. There were eight people in Australia with me, so we knew exactly what we were doing, and we planned it all.”
Pereira also reflected on his grueling travel schedule leading up to his 2016 kickboxing clash against Israel Adesanya in China, emphasizing that despite the demanding journey, it had no impact on his performance.
“A lot of people are talking about the traveling and all of the trips. Maybe it’s not the ideal situation. But I feel like I’m very experienced with that, and I’ve done this a million times, to be honest.”
Pereira is riding a five-fight win streak and was last seen in action at UFC 307 this past October, where he successfully defended his title with a dominant fourth-round TKO victory over Khalil Rountree Jr.
