Alex Pereira may have avenged his loss to Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 320, but his focus has already shifted to a new target — Jon Jones. After his latest Octagon victory, ‘Poatan’ revealed that he had a speech ready to call out Jones. However, out of respect for the former champion, whose brother Arthur Jones had recently passed away, Pereira instead asked for a moment of silence in his honor.

Even so, just mentioning Jones’ name was enough to ignite talks of a potential showdown between the two, possibly on next year’s highly anticipated White House card. While the card remains a mystery, the Brazilian claimed in an interview, “I want a superfight. It would be at the White House against Jon Jones.” To make this a reality, Pereira appeared to take a step back to avoid any missteps that could derail the opportunity.

Alex Pereira blames injury for U-Turn

During an interview with Ag. Fight, Alex Pereira was asked if he would defend his light heavyweight title, potentially a trilogy fight with Jiri Prochazka. Initially, Pereira appeared open to facing any opponent the UFC deemed appropriate. “Oh man, for me, anyone, I think whatever UFC thinks is best, which is for me, whatever is best, you know. Who’s there and in front, man, he’s beating everyone. This is the best fight for me,” Pereira said, indicating his willingness to take on the most formidable challenger.

However, about five minutes later, when questioned about the possibility of fighting before the UFC’s White House event in June next year, Pereira cited a foot injury as a limiting factor. “Well, I had plans too, and I even said, ‘Well, I can fight before and then also fight at the White House in June.’ But with this foot here, I don’t know. I think this foot happened to say, ‘No, stay quiet there, recover that foot. There’s only time for you to fight at the White House.’ I think everything was made for me to fight at the White House,” he explained during the interview.

Pereira later emphasized his interest in a high-profile matchup against Jon Jones, stating, “I just want a super fight. I already have enough belts. So that’s it.” Even though he is open to fighting Jones, Dana White isn’t such a big fan of it.

This obviously comes on the heels of the company president being skeptical about granting Jon Jones an opportunity to fight at the White House card next year. White made it quite clear that the reason he isn’t open to Jon Jones fighting on the card is because he can’t bank on the “unreliability” of the former UFC two-weight champion, especially given how he conducted himself in the last two years with the company — evading the Tom Aspinall fight, and abruptly retiring, leaving White and the MMA community perplexed. But why express hesitation with Alex Pereira fighting Jones?

Why is Dana White against Pereira fighting at heavyweight?

UFC CEO Dana White remains hesitant about letting Pereira fight at heavyweight because of the weight gap between the two divisions. “Probably that he was a middleweight and he’s going to jump up two weight classes in the UFC,” White said. “It’s not like jumping up two weight classes in boxing. It’s a big jump.”

He further added that he is not against Pereira moving to heavyweight, but highlighted that there are still good fights at light heavyweight. “He’s in a division where there’s still some interesting fights… We’ll have to talk about it. I just don’t see why, unless he wants to retire, throwing him at heavyweight makes any sense,” White added.

Having said that, Dana White might not be completely on board with the Jon Jones bout, but Alex Pereira sure wants the “super fight.” However, only time will tell whether that ends up happening. Do you think the fight will happen?