The arrival of a 34-year-old, 3-1 prospect in the Ultimate Fighting Championship normally would not engender much excitement, but Alex Pereira is anything but a normal case. Ahead of his debut last November at UFC 268, conversation already swirled around a potential future matchup with middleweight champ Israel Adesanya. That conversation launched into hyperdrive after “Poatan” knocked out Andreas Michailidis in the second round with a flying knee and punches.
The excitement, of course, stems from Pereira’s striking credentials, which include two-division champ status in Glory Kickboxing and a pair of wins over Adesanya, the second of which was a brutal one-punch knockout.