Heading into UFC 320, some whispered that Alex Pereira had been figured out. Seven months prior to his Las Vegas rematch with Magomed Ankalaev, Poatan had been rendered almost unrecognizable—timid, gunshy, and ultimately dethroned by the Dagestani wrestling supremo. Detractors wondered: was the Brazilian’s meteoric rise over once and for all?
Not on Pereira’s watch. The newly minted two-time light heavyweight champion silenced the doubters definitively, dropping his nemesis with a vicious right hand before following up with 12 to 6 ground and pound elbows so definitive, so thunderous, that they echoed across continents. In just over three minutes, Poatan reclaimed his championship—but more compellingly, his mystique.