Alex Pereira’s latest fight camp has been unconventional, to say the least.
The light heavyweight king will defend his belt against Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC 313 main event.
The Russian contender is arguably his toughest opponent to date, but that hasn’t stopped Alex Pereira from travelling around the world ahead of their fight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Here’s everything you need to know about ‘Poatan’ and his preparation for the fight that could see him break a title defense record set by Jon Jones.
- EXCLUSIVE: Watch: The moment Alex Pereira learns that Justin Gaethje vs Dan Hooker is off UFC 313 over injury
Inside Alex Pereira’s UFC 313 camp
Sean Strickland has been a major point of contention with those poking holes in Pereira’s UFC 313 camp.
The controversial middleweight got his nose smashed in as he lost a 185lb title rematch with Dricus du Plessis at UFC 312, which took place at the Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney, Australia on February 12.
Pereira struck up a friendship with Strickland after brutally knocking him out at UFC 276 in July 2022.
Still, people were surprised that he travelled Down Under to be part of the wacky American’s corner team less than one month before his own fight—but Pereira has since revealed he was scheduled to be in Australia for other commitments anyway.
Proper training partners weren’t easy to come by during his trip. At one point, Pereira was spotted moving around with Diego Lopes, who will fight Alexander Volkanovski for the featherweight title at UFC 314 in April.
Pereira stayed in Australia long after UFC 312 was done and was filmed mingling with Drake.
The rapper is famous for losing big money betting on MMA fights and is widely regarded as a jinx.
When he finally returned to his base in Danbury, Connecticut, Pereira’s unconventional camp continued.
The 37-year-old shared footage of him wrestling with his coach, Glover Teixeira, in the snow last week.
Daniel Cormier is worried about Alex Pereira
Former dual-weight UFC champion Daniel Cormier doesn’t like what he’s seeing from Pereira’s camp.
During an episode of his show Good Guy/Bad Guy with Chael Sonnen last month, the popular commentator explained what concerns him the most ahead of UFC 313.
“Ankalaev’s already [in Las Vegas], he’s locked in, I ran into him at the UFC PI last week,” Cormier said. “He’s honestly so locked in, ready to win this fight against Alex Pereira, who was in Australia last week, shaking the hand of Drake as he went on stage for his concert.
“What is Pereira still doing in Australia? He fights in two weeks! I got back from Australia and all last week, I’m up at three o’clock in the morning. I don’t care that Pereira’s got weeks to get ready, he’s going to be ready and going to be prepared.
“But even those two to three extra days when he’s adjusting his clock to get back on schedule in Connecticut… He’s going to have to deal with all that travel and all that difference in time. And where’s Glover [Teixeira]? Is Glover just in Australia with him? Is it just him and Plinio [Cruz]?
“Glover’s the guy, honestly, that should be doing the most work with Alex right now because of [Ankalaev’s] wrestling… Pereira better get home, he needs to get home and lock in, because he has the hardest fight of his title reign.”
Pereira hit back at Cormier and anyone else questioning him in an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow.
“I can say to Daniel Cormier and a bunch of the other specialists saying that I shouldn’t have gone out there that I’ve been in this situation before. It’s actually been worse before when I was in Australia and had signed up to fight but didn’t even know I was going to do that.
“This time it was all very planned out, I knew what I was going to do. I took basically my whole team down there, I had eight people in Australia with me and we knew exactly what to do so we had it all very well planned out.
“A lot of people are talking about the travelling and all of the trips, maybe it’s not the ideal situation. But I feel like I’m very experienced with that and I’ve done this a million times to be honest.”