Can Anyone Stop Poatan? Alex Pereira Continues His Path of Destruction

Let’s face it. Things weren’t looking good for the UFC.

It’s not ideal when a pay-per-view main event falls apart after the posters have been hung and the billboards positioned. It’s even worse when the fight is scheduled to headline the promotion’s annual International Fight Week in Las Vegas.

It’s cataclysmic when the main event is built around Conor McGregor.

After all, the former two-time “Notorious” champion enjoyed a long and profitable, if not always successful, career as the company’s most recognizable superstar.

Yet somehow, UFC 303 survived.

And who would have believed it? It could have surpassed the original.

Having saved the series from the hottest of burning buildings, having snatched it from the tightest jaws of defeat… or, well, whatever cliché a never-at-a-lose-for-words Dana White might want to invoke… he may have also done something far more substantial.

He found a new supernova.

His name is Alex Pereira. And after just nine fights with the company following a decorated career as a kickboxer, he seems destined to accomplish things McGregor never came close to.

And he has managed to do so, at least so far, without any of the external problems that have become one of the central narratives of the iconic Irishman’s recent history.

Now 36, Pereira became a UFC champion just one year and six days after his debut in the company, dethroning a fighter in Israel Adesanya who not only held a belt at 185 pounds, but was also at or very near the top of every reputable pound-for-pound compilation.

He returned the belt to Adesanya five months later before immediately announcing a move up to light heavyweight, where he beat former champion Jan Blachowicz three months after Adesanya’s defeat and was selected for a fight for the title against Jiří Procházka.

Procházka was knocked out in two rounds as the Brazilian matched McGregor’s champion/champion status, but “Poatan” didn’t stop there. He crushed Jamahal Hill in a single round at UFC 300 in April, then was abruptly pulled from preparation for a defense later this year to headline Saturday’s show in McGregor’s absence.

How did it go? Go ahead and ask people who know what they’re looking at.

“He’s the biggest superstar in MMA today. On a level we haven’t seen since Conor McGregor,” Jon Anik said after Pereira knocked out Procházka, again in two rounds but this time with a vicious and viral head kick. “This is Poatan’s world in the UFC in 2024.”

It’s top of the line, that’s for sure.

But on the contrary, Anik may be underestimating what we see.

After starting his career with fights against anonymous like Andreas Michailidis (KO 2) and Bruno Silva (UD 3), Pereira continued with seven consecutive fights against five reigning champions, former or future, including two — Procházka and Hill — surrendered their belts through injury rather than defeat.

He won six of seven (five by knockout), defeated every one of five foes (Procházka twice) and did it in a murderous manner that thrilled crowds from Las Vegas to New York, while flying in the face of the doting family man persona he portrays outside the cage.

“He’s the same humble guy that came into the UFC,” analyst Daniel Cormier said. “This guy continues to raise the bar.”

Imagine that… just as accomplished and a million times nicer.

And apparently he’s not about to be satisfied either.

Pereira hinted ahead of the Procházka rematch about testing the waters at heavyweight, where current champion Jon Jones arrived after his long reign at 205. Pereira said the idea hadn’t generated much interest in the organization before Saturday night, but the crowd’s reaction at T-Mobile Arena suggests the time may be right.

After all, each of the top five light heavyweight fighters (who enter Saturday) have had a recent chance to qualify for the big fights, with three of them (Procházka, Hill and Blachowicz) losing to Pereira himself, while No. 2 Magomed Ankalaev drew Blachowicz for a vacant 2022 title and No. 5 Aleksandar Rakić was knocked out by Procházka in April.

At 6ft 4in, Pereira would be nose-to-nose with the aforementioned Jones and would be just an inch shorter than interim champion Tom Aspinall, and his kickboxing pedigree would make for a fascinating matchup with the likes of second-ranked Ciryl Gane, who transitioned to MMA after a 13-fight incarnation as a professional Muay Thai fighter.

Just three years ago, as an untested Pereira prepared for a gargantuan stint from the LFA to the UFC, it would have seemed ridiculous. But as the crowd rolled in late Saturday night in Vegas, it felt much more like something else.

Inevitable.

“He talks about moving up, I say let him go,” analyst Joe Rogan said. “What he does is actually impossible. And he gets better every time.”