Alex Pereira had one of, if not the greatest run in the entire history of the sport of MMA. After all, in just his fourth UFC fight, he became the middleweight champ, and in his sixth UFC fight, he was a two-division champ. Since then, he has defended his light heavyweight title three times and is currently the face of the promotion. But surprisingly, perhaps none of this would have been possible without the help of Colby Covington.

“I’ve always respected and liked Alex, man. I trained with him, you know… probably seven, eight years ago,” Covington revealed in a recent interview with Submission Radio. “He came in and he came in with Glover Teixeira and I was good friends with Glover. So he brought in Alex and he wanted me to help him with wrestling because he was this great Glory kickboxer, like nasty, you know, like future [UFC] champ.”

At that time Alex Pereira was still competing as a kickboxer Glory and had already started his MMA career at local promotions. In fact, ‘Poatan’ had been submitted in his MMA debut in 2015 in the second round, which probably compelled him to seek out world-class grapplers to hone his takedown defense. This means that Covington was a part – a small part, but a part nonetheless – of Pereira’s subsequent success.

“He knew he was already going to get into MMA at that time when he was kickboxing, but he just wanted to get more experience in the striking before he made his run in the MMA. So, you know, I was helping him with wrestling for a little bit. And, you know, I respect the guys, he’s a great fighter,” he added.

This is high praise from Covington, who plays a loud-mouthed and arrogant character to sell fights, taking shots at fellow fighters every chance he gets. But even ‘Chaos’ can’t help but admire Pereira. Knowing Pereira’s game intimately because he trained with the champ, Covington even made some surprising predictions for a potential Alex Pereira vs. Jon Jones fight.

Why Colby Covington sees Alex Pereira beating Jon Jones

There is a possibility, albeit a slim one that Alex Pereira fights Jon Jones before retiring. After all, ‘Bones’ named ‘Poatan’ as the guy he would like to fight after UFC 309. For now, however, Jones is in talks to fight interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall, after which the GOAT contender may retire. But if he doesn’t, he could well fight Pereira after Aspinall, since Pereira has also expressed interest in moving up to heavyweight.

But their stylistic matchup is very unfavorable to the Brazilian, precisely because of his lack of any real ground game. Jones, on the other hand, has excellent wrestling and many feel that he will just take Pereira down and maul him on the ground. This is especially because the heavyweight version of Jones is bigger than Pereira. However, Covington disagrees with these predictions, and actually sees a path to victory for ‘Poatan’ against ‘Bones’.

“Oh for sure, he [Pereira] could definitely catch him [Jones]. I mean, no doubt about it, Jon’s going to shoot for those legs, he’s not going to want to get cracked by Alex Pereira. That that left hook and you know and those kicks are lethal. So, you know, I definitely think he can knock out Jon with a straight with a nice little left hook,” Covington said in the same interview. What do you think about Colby Covington’s revelations about training with Alex Pereira?