Alex Pereira was keen on defending his light heavyweight championship title and did not lose focus until he lived up to his “Poatan” nickname which means “Stone Hands” in the Tupi language as he knocked out Jiří Procházka in the second round of theeir latest bout with a lightning-quick switch kick.
Pereira’s win against Jiří Procházka, live from the T-Mobile Arena last Saturday, portrays him as yet another force to reckon with and one of the UFC’s most unstoppable force for the year.
This happened even as Jiri Prochazka was suspicious of Alex Pereira using magic like he thought he was using at UFC 295 to have an edge in their rematch. The former light heavyweight champion believed that if given a chance, he could beat Pereira to win back the UFC light heavyweight title.
Recall that Pereira defended his belt against the former titleholder with a brutal leg kick to the head, getting the KO with a few more blows on the ground and leaving Procházka barely conscious after the fight was called.
In the second round, what seemed like a repetition of the ending of the first round came into play at the beginning as Pereira levelled Procházka with a hard left with a good second remaining.
However, upon commencement of the first round, “Poatan” and Prochazka would not stop staring at one another for over four+ minutes when they entered the cage, almost a full round. When the opening bell rang, all bets were off. They traded shots, with Pereira chopping the knee of Prochazka. Prochazka tried to land crisp shots and even held Pereira by the cage. He did get caught with a left hook before the end of the first round.
Remarkably, Pereira landed the main event at the promotion’s stacked UFC 300 card and lived up to the moment with a first-round knockout of Jamahal Hill, which would have been the moment of the night had it not been for Max Holloway going berserker.
With just two and a half weeks’ notice, Pereira and Procházka replaced Conor McGregor in the main event of UFC 303 after the fighter pulled out of the bout with Michael Chandler because of a broken pinky toe. Dana White, the president of the UFC, would have expressed gratitude to Pereira regardless of the result.
However, to resolutely defend his title against one of the most formidable opponents in the division—that kind of stuff elevates a champion to a higher plane.
What comes next for Pereira, who has defeated three past champions in Procházka, Hill and Jan Blachowicz, has become the talk of the division. He may yet have to contend with Magomed Ankalaev, who has a strong case that he was unfairly denied the title in a contentious draw with Blachowicz, but he also said through an interpreter he intends to move up to heavyweight, with a chance at becoming the UFC’s first three-division champion.
He said, “I think that’s in my future. I said that the last time I was here. I said it a lot, there didn’t seem to be too much interest in the organization, but I’m here, I’m available and I do think that’s in my future.”
The fight ended one of the most logistically chaotic cards in UFC history, in which the co-main event had to be reworked four different times. The result of that fight was Diego Lopes defeating Dan Ige, who stepped in on four hours’ notice.
