Alex Pereira has offered to make the cut down to middleweight for one final fight with Dricus Du Plessis.
The terrifying Brazilian started his MMA career at 185lb as he pursued then-champion Israel Adesanya, whom Du Plessis defeated last night at UFC 305. At the time of Pereira’s move from kickboxing, the Nigerian was essentially unbeatable at the weight, until reuniting with his old rival.
Now, Pereira is up at light-heavyweight, and appeared to have left his middleweight dreams behind until last night. In fact, the more popular consensus was that he may move up a division to challenge either Tom Aspinall or Jon Jones for the heavyweight belt.
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Alex Pereira shares chilling message to Dricus Du Plessis after UFC 305 KO
The United States and the United Kingdom got the UFC 305 main event in the early hours of Sunday morning after a Saturday night of fights. But the bouts actually ended in the early evening on Sunday local time in Perth where they were held.
Dricus Du Plessis had a tough go of it over four rounds as he squared off with one of the middleweight greats Israel Adesanya in what was essentially an away fight. But he managed to land a fourth round submission that sees him legitimised as champion after a controversial initial win over Sean Strickland.
In the immediate aftermath he was shown a number of challengers, but none made the headlines quite like former middleweight champion Alex Pereira. The current light-heavyweight champion shared a photo of himself watching the fight with the simple caption “Coming down to 185 one more time”.
Pereira hasn’t made middleweight since early last year when he rematched Adesanya at UFC 287 in Miami. That night, he was knocked out by a challenger hell-bent on revenge following three defeats across different disciplines in fights he was arguably winning.
Dricus Du Plessis accepts Alex Pereira’s callout, on one condition
Dricus Du Plessis appeared to be well up for Pereira’s challenge, but had one caveat for making the super-fight. Instead of draining the light-heavyweight champion to a weight well under his walking around 230lb, he wanted to move up and challenge for a second belt.
Pereira is currently scheduled to return at UFC 307 in October. However, the fact that he faces Khalil Rountree Jr is indicative of a weaker pool of challengers following an incredibly active title reign since winning the belt as recently as November.
“I honestly don’t think Alex Pereira should drop down to 185lbs,” Du Plessis said during his post-fight press conference when asked about his rival’s post. “If he wants to, great, perfect, but then we’re going to get the excuses. We saw Izzy stiff that man in the first [second] round.
“I felt Izzy’s punching power tonight. You know, Izzy has great timing. He’s fast, he’s long, and he has great combinations, but I felt the power. If Izzy stiffens you like that, you do not want to be in there with me.
“Especially when you’re going to come in there with excuses like I cut too much weight, everyone is going to say that.”
Dricus Du Plessis’ coach also wants move up to light-heavyweight
It’s not just Du Plessis himself who is interested in the super-fight, with his trainer Morne Visser also keen on such a matchup. He even branded the potential bout a ‘blessing’, but concurred that it should be done at Pereira’s more natural light-heavyweight.
“No – I won’t give him the joy to go down to 185,” Visser told Submission Radio after UFC 305. “We’ll just go up… He doesn’t want to beat him [at 185 because] he’ll say that we’ve gone down, he was fatigued and whatever so no, we’ll go up [instead].
“I’m sure that the UFC will be okay with it, if that’s what he’s said, [and] I know Dricus is game, so we’ll go up – we won’t wait for him to come down. He’s fighting in October, so I really hope that the UFC gives us this blessing for December.”
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