Before he was stacking bodies inside the Octagon, Alex Pereira could change a tire like nobody’s business. And apparently, he still can.
Before he came to be the UFC light heavyweight champion, ‘Poatan’ was a 12-year-old dropout who started working in a tire shop to support himself. Before long, Pereira slipped into alcoholism—a subject he recently opened up about on the Nem Me Viu podcast—but eventually found his way out of both poverty and drinking through kickboxing.
Turning pro in 2013, Pereira became a world champion under the GLORY Kickboxing banner four years later.