It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between middleweight phenom Khamzat Chimaev and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. ‘Borz’ has not hesitated in calling out the Brazilian champion, and it’s no secret that ‘Poatan’ is not a fan of the Chechnyan. Chimaev didn’t miss a beat when he poked fun at Pereira’s lone loss in the UFC, one where he was knocked out cold. In another instance, Pereira used a certain slur against the Chechen fighter in a video reuploaded by ESPN. And the light heavyweight champion was not happy about this.

Khamzat Chimaev took to his X handle to post two images of Alex Pereira, where he was being looked after by the doctors after Israel Adesanya knocked him out at UFC 287. The middleweight contender wrote the captions “Sama Wake up,” and “Sama.”. Fueling this rivalry even more, ESPN MMA took to its Instagram handle and reshared a video of Alex Pereira’s choice words for Khamzat Chimaev.

Two years back, while having an interview session with the media, Alex Pereira was presented with fighter names and was asked to describe them in one word. The light heavyweight champion acknowledged that Robert Whittaker, Israel Adesanya, and even Jamahal Hill are good fighters. However, when the interviewer asked him about Khamzat Chimaev, Pereira responded, “Dog’s a***ole.” Expressing disappointment in the sports network, ‘Poatan’ wrote, “It’s very mean for ESPN to use an old video to create anger in the sports community just to gain views. It’s regrettable.”

Alex Pereira shared his comment on his Instagram stories to put ESPN on blast for stoking the flames between himself and ‘Borz’. Both Chimaev and Pereira haven’t closely interacted to have any real beef, and even though there might be animosity between the two, Pereira seems to be in no mood to have his name dragged into drama.

Well, Khamzat Chimaev is not the only fighter who appears to be in a mood to have a rivalry with the light-heavyweight champion. Even Dricus Du Plessis has called out Alex Pereira in the hopes of fighting him some day.

Dricus Du Plessis believes he could defeat Alex Pereira

While having a conversation at the UFC 312 press conference, a motivated Dricus Du Plessis emphasized that he has immense respect for Alex Pereira, however, he believes that he has the potential to take on the light-heavyweight champion, “I have a world of respect for Alex Pereira,” said Du Plessis. “I have the most respect for him, what he’s done in a short period of time in the UFC, to come from another sport, what he’s done there. But yes, I wanna share the Octagon with that man. I want to be that guy.”

He further added that he is praying that Alex Pereira gets past against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313, “I said, ‘Please beat Ankalaev. No hate against Ankalaev — I just want to beat Alex Pereira. It’s nothing personal against Ankalaev. It was just Pereira, he’s such a legend in the sport to me already that it would be amazing to beat him. And for my legacy, I wanna be the greatest to ever do this. But Khamzat’s next.”

When you’ve defeated three former champions, your motivation skyrockets—and that’s exactly what Du Plessis is experiencing right now. Will ‘Stillknocks’ be able to defeat Alex Pereira if they ever fight or will it be a humbling experience for the middleweight champion? State your thoughts in the comments below.