Middleweight Alex Pereira believes the most dangerous opponent of his mixed martial arts career will not be his next one. Paired up against Sean Strickland at UFC 277, the former two-division Glory champion thinks Bruno Silva, the last man he faced in the Octagon, was a riskier pairing.
In an interview with Ag Fight, ‘Poatan’ compared Silva’s style with Strickland and concluded that the former was the most threatening of the two. In Pereira’s opinion, the reason for that is ‘Blindado’ having a more careless approach in a stand-up match, as opposed to a patient striker such as Sean.
“A fight is a fight, but if I were to choose between the two of them, which one is better for me, I’d say it’s Strickland. Blindado is more dangerous than him, he’s tougher. He’s a guy who comes at you, he walks forward. He takes more chances. On one hand, that’s good for me. On the other, it’s not that good. A guy who attacks a lot, like Blindado, I think I have good defense (to deal with that). So I make him attack and he’ll get tired. The more he attacks, the more tired he gets.”
“Strickland doesn’t attack as much as Blindado.” Pereira said. “He won’t throw three, four, five or ten strikes at a time. He won’t attack as much and if he doesn’t attack as much, I can hit him more. If he wants to attack more, he’ll do something he’s not used to and get more tired.”
Currently on a two-fight winning streak in the UFC, Pereira (5-1) picked up a win over the aforementioned Silva in his last outing, as well as a knockout victory against Andreas Michailidis before that. In fact, the 34-year-old’s last loss happened in October 2015, when he got submitted by Quemuel Ottoni.
Now, Pereira is expected to take on Strickland at UFC 277, on July 30. The card’s location and main event are yet to be announced by the promotion.
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