Alex Pereira has gone from being one of the biggest weight cutters in the sport to not having to cut one bit. And all he had to do was move up two weightclasses.
The 6’4″ Pereira started off his UFC career at middleweight, somehow cutting down to 185 pounds for years. After holding the middleweight title, he moved up to light heavyweight where he took the 205 pound belt. Now he hopes to become the first three-division UFC champion by winning the interim heavyweight title against Ciryl Gane at UFC White
House on June 14th.
So how much will “Poatan” weigh on fight night?
“Around [242 pounds],” Pereira said in an interview with Paramount+. “Not too heavy, I was heavier before. I got up to [258 pounds] and then I gradually started cutting back down.”
16 pounds over the course of camp is nothing for the Brazilian kickboxer.
“I was at [242 pounds], then I dropped to [205 pounds],” Pereira recalled. “Now doing the math is difficult … It helps me a lot because of my diet. I don’t have that concern anymore.”
“When I was a middleweight, it was much more complicated. About a month before the fight, I had to cut back heavily on food, maybe even feel a bit weaker. The weight cut was pretty aggressive. Now I don’t have that concern anymore and for me, that’s very important.”
There have been questions on how Pereira will handle the extra weight on his body, but it sounds like he’s not substantially bigger than he was when cutting down to light heavyweight. Add in no weight cut and that’s a huge advantage of moving to heavyweight. We still have to wonder how he’ll handle bigger opponents, and Ciryl Gane is big.
It all leads to a very interesting matchup on the White House lawn on Sunday, June 14th.
