Alex Pereira is done playing nice.
That's if he ever did, to begin with, anyway. Typically, Pereira will respect his opponents and keep to himself. Unless given a reason not to. Enter his last opponent, Jamahal Hill.
UFC 300 feels like somewhat of a distant memory as June rolls on. In the main event that night in April, Pereira made a successful first defense of his title with a first-round KO of "Sweet Dreams." However, it wasn't without controversy, according to Hill, who recently slammed Pereira and the stoppage's "stop-start" nature. During a trip to Australia, "Poatan" responded with the following.
“To be honest, I kind of don’t get why he’s doing this so late,” Pereira told mainevent. “It’s been almost two months. People usually do that right away, but maybe he just woke up from the knockout.
“You harvest what you plant, what you seed. During Glover [Teixeira’s] fight, he was respectful. With Glover, he got respect at the end. With us, he was a bit more disrespectful. So, he got what he put on.”
Hill's outburst highlighted how the knockout sequence came directly after he landed a kick to the groin on Pereira, causing a brief pause in the action. Well, referee Herb Dean attempted to provide a timeout but Pereira waved it off and shut the show down with his vintage left hook seconds after. The “confusing” disruption of that moment threw off Hill, he said.
Regardless, the division moves on as Hill was matched with Khalil Rountree Jr. at the upcoming UFC 303 event until Rountree was removed after a failed drug test. Pereira, on the other hand, expects to rematch Jiri Prochazka, who he won the title against at UFC 295 in November.
The matchup is just an assumption from Pereira and one that excludes one of the perennial top contenders, Magomed Ankalaev. Ultimately, the champion is content with whichever direction the promotion chooses.
“Like I said before, it’s not up to me,” Pereira said. “If they want Ankalaev, whoever the organization put on, I’m fine with Ankalaev. If they think it’s Jiri, I’ll go with Jiri.”
