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Alex Pereira is the new UFC light heavyweight champion, and the answer to the question of whether his power translates to 205 seems to be a resounding ‘yes.’ The Brazilian defeated Jiri Prochazka via TKO in the second round following an excellent combination, which downed the Czech as he was starting to get the upper hand.

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Pereira is now a two-division champion in two promotions as he was also a two-division champion in the kickboxing promotion, Glory. A reporter asked ‘Poatan’ about a potential move up to the heavyweight division to become the first UFC three weight division champion, to which the light heavyweight champion responded with a surprising answer.

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Alex Pereira discusses a possible move to heavyweight

In the UFC 295 post-fight press conference, Alex Pereira was asked whether he harboured ambitions to move up to heavyweight after his successful 205 lbs run. The Brazilian revealed that this was not the first time he was asked about a possible move to heavyweight. ‘Poatan’, however, made clear that he was not mulling a move up to the UFC’s heaviest division, as he was already 36 and wanted to focus on the things already in his plate at the moment.

“Since I was fighting middleweight, people already been asking me if I will fight a heavyweight and I keep saying the same thing: that I’ll have to listen to my body. I’m 36 years old now. I don’t know how far can I still fight so right now my focus is just this,” he said.

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Instead, Pereira wants to have a much-awaited trilogy with his old rival, Israel Adesanya. He called out ‘Izzy’ following his UFC 295 victory. “Adesanya, come to daddy,” the light heavyweight champion said in the post-fight octagon interview.

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‘Poatan’ and ‘Izzy’ have fought twice in the UFC, with the tally being one win for each. The Brazilian had beaten the Kiwi in an upset fifth-round victory at UFC 281 last year to become the middleweight champion.

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Their UFC 287 rematch, however, did not go Pereira’s way. Adesanya defeated the Brazilian in the second round to reclaim the 185-pound title. Pereira moved up to light heavyweight soon after, as he had been having trouble cutting weight for middleweight. Things, however, seem to have gone full circle with ‘Poatan’ calling out ‘Stylebender’. Adesanya, however, does not seem keen for their trilogy as indicated by his response to the Brazilian’s call-out.

Adesanya responds to Pereira’s call-out with a meme

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Israel Adesanya shockingly lost his middleweight title to Sean Strickland at UFC 293. The Nigerian-born announced that he would be going on a hiatus from fighting after the loss to recover his body and mind. And ‘Izzy’ does not seem keen on fighting Pereira again. After the call-out, Adesanya responded to ‘Poatan’ on Twitter with a meme inspired from the Disney film ‘Frozen’. “Let it gooooo,” he wrote.

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Meanwhile, Jan Blachowicz, who Pereira defeated in a controversial split-decision on his 205 debut, has called out ‘Poatan’ and demanded they have a rematch before the Brazilian moves on to Adesanya. Who do you think Pereira should fight next? Let us know in the comments section below.

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Written by

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Kanishk Thakur

2,731 Articles

Kanishk Thakur is a senior UFC writer at EssentiallySports with over 2500 articles. A seasoned writer with about 5 years of professional writing experience, he has expertly covered the heated rivalries in the fight game and delivered meticulous reports of athlete payouts here at ES. Additionally, he also unravels stories that occur outside the cage, in fighters' lives. Conor McGregor even shouted out Kanishk's spread on Forged Irish stout on his socials. When he's not drafting his next piece for his readers, you can find him hunched over a book.

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Yeswanth Praveen

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