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Alex Pereira brutally knocked out middleweight contender Sean Strickland to earn a title shot in 2022. A year later, and the former opponents are currently training together for a week, with Strickland helping Pereira prepare for his light heavyweight debut.
The now former middleweight champion is moving up to light heavyweight to fight Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291, and Pereira posted video of his first training session with Strickland.
Former foes Alex Pereira and Sean Strickland train together
Sean Strickland was a guest at Glover Teixeira’s gym, where Alex Pereira is preparing for UFC 291, and the pair had a nice and friendly sparring session together.
“Let’s fight again. Don’t knock me out this time,” Strickland joked before their training session. “No, you can still knock me out. At least half my paycheck is not going away.”
Even if it was a pretty light and technical session, Strickland commented about Pereira being bigger and how he “hits hard.”
Watch video of their sparring session below:
Alex Pereira the grim reaper
Soon after training together, Sean Strickland reflected about the sparring session and noted how Alex Pereira is the grim reaper.
“Here’s the thing about Alex (Pereira),” Strickland said on his Instagram Stories. “I can spar Alex and go point for point. I can hit him, I can kick him. But the difference is, the man touches you and you just f–king die.”
That touch of death has served Pereira well from his decorated kickboxing stint to his relatively young MMA career with all but one of his seven wins ending by knockout. It’ll be curious to see if he can land that big shot against the former light heavyweight champion, or if Blachowicz will dominate on the ground the same way he beat his longtime rival in Israel Adesanya.
Pereira fights Blachowicz at UFC 291 on July 29, while Strickland fights earlier in the month when he takes on Abusupiyan Magomedov to headline UFC Vegas 76 on July 1.
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