The UFC’s new superstar Alex Pereira paid a visit to Down Under weeks before his title defense at UFC 303. He surprised many fans after hitting up Australian hip-hop artist Spanian for a training session. Interestingly, ‘Poatan’ also caught up with heavyweight star Tai Tuivasa, as both went ham at each other during a sparring session. But things didn’t look good for ‘Bam Bam’ as he revealed recently.

It’s been tough for the UFC’s president ‘shoey’ lover in the past 30 months. Tai Tuivasa hasn’t scored a win in over two years, and UFC 305 is yet another opportunity to find his bearings and get back in the winning column. When he started training for the showdown against Jairzinho Rozenstruik, he had the opportunity to train with the UFC light heavyweight champion, and Alex Pereira surprised Tuivasa.

Alex Pereira took Tai Tuiavsa to the limit while sparring

Alex Pereira has shown time and time again that he’s not someone to be messed with when it comes to exchanging blows, and Tai Tuivasa got a bit of that taste from ‘Poatan’. A beatdown from the 205-pound destroyer made ‘Bam Bam’ realize that he had been off the game for a bit too long than he thought, prompting him to train harder and move to the Middle East.

“It was kind of my first training session back and I got the sh*t punched out of me. I think I left a few days after that to Dubai and I was like, ‘Yeah, f*. I better go train,” Tai Tuiavsa told the media ahead of UFC 305. But the reporters were not done with that topic. They wanted to know more about how it felt when he got punched by Alex Pereira, to which Tuivasa only responded by claiming that he was away from camp for too long.

“His power, you know, I fight in heavyweight so we can take a punch or two. But it was more… I hadn’t been training. I want in and I was f***ing running out of breath and getting the sh*t punched out of me,” Tai Tuivasa further stated.

Regardless of what went down, Tai Tuivasa claimed that “it was all fun and games” as punching is just part of the sport they compete in. But did you know that ‘Bam Bam’ wasn’t the only one Alex Pereira sparred with in Australia? He hit up a 22-1 professional boxer for a sparring session as well.

‘Poatan’ traded barbs with a heavyweight boxer

Former Australian national heavyweight champion Demsey McKean met Alex Pereira for the first time ahead of his short-notice UFC 303 fight. It was a risk for ‘Poatan’, who had a big title fight soon, but he couldn’t help but find the biggest boxer he could and get in a bit of sparring session, and that’s where McKean came in, and fans were worried for the UFC champion.

Guess what? Pereira doesn’t seem to care much if it’s a light heavyweight or a heavyweight, because he gave the Aussie pugilist a pretty good spar. While the UFC champion praised the 22-1 boxer’s technical prowess, Demsey McKean took a picture with Alex Pereira at the end of their sparring session. The question now is who is ‘Poatan’ going to spar with next? That will be interesting to see.

What do you make of Tai Tuivasa’s comments about the sparring session? Do you think he got overwhelmed by Alex Pereira’s power? Drop your views below.