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Alex Pereira is the reigning UFC light heavyweight champion, as well as a former titleholder in the promotion's middleweight division. In relatively short order, he has become a star in a sport that he's still inexperienced in. Yet, he is now scheduled to headline UFC 300.
But, the fame and fortune that he's been afforded did not come easily. In fact, for some time, Pereira was likely convinced that he'd live and die as most do, in obscurity. After all, the first half of his life was defined by hardship. However, the harsh extremes of his past circumstances produced a man of extremes.
Along the way, Pereira battled alcoholism, poverty, and the hard hand that life had dealt him. He conquered his demons and with newfound discipline, went on to conquer the worlds of kickboxing and MMA in a manner never before seen.
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The early days of Alex Pereira
Born in São Paulo, Alex Pereira grew up surrounded by poverty in the Brazilian favelas. With little guidance, his childhood lacked a strong foundation, and years later, Pereira dropped out of primary school, forgoing his education in favor of becoming a bricklayer's assistant.
Not long afterward, he found work at a tire shop, where he was paid not in money but alcohol, as Pereira—still a child—was pressured by his peers into taking up drinking. Before long, his drinking became a daily habit, worsening until he was verging on a liter of alcohol per day.
Check out Alex Pereira working in a tire shop:
Eventually, Pereira sought to kick his alcoholism, and he found the sport of kickboxing. It made sense to him. He lacked the talent for football, the sport with which Brazilians most identify. But, if there was one thing Pereira could do, it was survive and fight.
Upon joining a kickboxing gym, his potential was recognized by coach Wilson Nunes, who felt that the young Brazilian was too talented for him to train. Instead, he steered him toward the more credentialed Belocqua Wera.
Under Wera's guidance, Pereira honed his skills as a kickboxer but struggled to realize his potential. The tire shop at which Pereira worked didn't pay him enough to cover the gym membership fees, and it led to clashes between Wera and gym personnel who would have rather barred Pereira from the facility.
Yet, the most glaring issue remained: Pereira was still an alcoholic. With no other recourse, Wera, who is of indigenous heritage, prepared a special herbalist remedy to cleanse Pereira's body from within. During this process, the two discovered that Pereira also had indigenous ancestry.
His grandparents were members of the Pataxó tribe of Bahia, Brazil. Spiritually awakened, Pereira was reborn as 'Poatan,' which means 'Hands of Stone' in Old Tupi, a dead language once spoken by a different indigenous group, the Tupis.
He and Wera subsequently took part in various indigenous customs together, including dances, to strengthen his connection to his roots. He also learned his distinctive style of kickboxing, which Wera named 'jaguar style,' and the combat sports world could have never predicted what followed.
Alex Pereira's rise to kickboxing glory
Kickboxing was Alex Pereira's first love. It gave him structure and set him on a warpath. Armed with a weapon of mass destruction in his left hand, 'Poatan's' lead left hook became a nuclear weapon capable of reducing anyone's chin to rubble. With it, he doomed the kickboxing world, though not right away.
His initial foray into the sport saw him compete in minor fights, as he won some bouts and lost others, collecting Jungle Fight, WAKO, and WGP championships along the way. It was during this time that he had his first two encounters with Israel Adesanya.
Their matchups were controversial and represented turning points in their kickboxing careers. Adesanya was far more experienced at the time and served as the antithesis of Pereira. He was a flashy trash-talker who peacocked his way around the ring with overstated confidence bordering on arrogance.
Pereira, meanwhile, let his fighting do the talking and had a stoic, understated brand of cold-blooded self-certainty. Adesanya came from a wealthy family who could afford to offer him a better life in New Zealand instead of his native Nigeria. As a child, he had servants, some of whom even bathed him.
His rival, Pereira, however, was born into extreme poverty in the Brazilian favelas and worked at a tire shop, where he was paid in beer and was an alcoholic by age 13. These differences extended to how they fought in the ring, with Adesanya being a mobile, free-flowing counterpuncher with blinding speed.
On the opposite end, 'Poatan' was a crushing and methodical knockout artist who stalked his foes. No one, however, could have predicted the rivalry that would emerge from their clashes. Their first matchup was a closely contested bout, with neither man landing anything of true significance.
Pereira appeared to land the harder blows, but Adesanya was ahead on volume. Ultimately, 'The Last Stylebender' was confident he had done enough to win. Instead, 'Poatan's' hand was raised in victory, and Adesanya decried the outcome as a robbery. A year later, the two men met in a rematch.
Their second outing, however, came under suboptimal circumstances for Pereira. It was a short-notice bout, and he had an injured ligament in his elbow. So, it was no surprise that Adesanya had the advantage against an injured, less experienced foe coming in on short notice.
Check out Alex Pereira knocking out Israel Adesanya:
Round one was close, with little to determine who was ahead. Round two, though, was all Adesanya, who styled on Pereira, battering him from pillar to post until the referee stepped in to give the rocked Brazilian a standing 8-count. 'Poatan' survived and in round three, landed his most viral knockout.
He flattened Adesanya with his trademark left hook, and with 'The Last Stylebender' out cold with an oxygen mask, Pereira's young son mocked him by running into the ring and falling to the mat, as if he too were unconscious. It was Adesanya's last-ever kickboxing bout after 80 fights.
For Pereira, however, it was just the beginning. Soon after that, he authored a 9-fight win streak, evolving as a fighter en route to become the first simultaneous two-division champion in Glory Kickboxing history, capturing its middleweight and light heavyweight titles.
Check out Alex Pereira's kickboxing highlights:
By then, Pereira had already participated in a few low-profile MMA bouts. But a true commitment to mixed martial arts came after a fateful comment.
Alex Pereira, a two-division UFC champion and UFC 300 headliner
Were it not for Israel Adesanya claiming that Alex Pereira was someone of no renown, whose greatest life accomplishment would be telling random women at bars that he beat him once, 'Poatan' may have never signed with the UFC. But Adesanya's comments lit a fire under Pereira.
He had mocked the Brazilian and even referenced his struggles as an alcoholic. For this, Pereira would take everything from Adesanya and more; he would accomplish what Adesanya never had. He had already done so in kickboxing, where Adesanya never captured a world title. So, why not in MMA?
In only his fifth professional MMA bout, Pereira made his UFC debut, signed by the promotion purely due to his history with Adesanya, who was, by then, without compelling challengers at middleweight, as he had cleaned out the division. At UFC 268, 'Poatan' announced himself to the world in emphatic fashion.
Check out Alex Pereira knocking out Andreas Michailidis:
He knocked out Andreas Michailidis with a flying knee and followed that up with a strong but competitive decision win over Bruno Silva. Next, however, he would face future UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland. Despite being his highest-ranked foe yet, the Strickland bout remains Pereira's most dominant win.
Within two minutes, Pereira had figured that Strickland defended body shots by parrying. The Brazilian repeatedly stabbed him with jabs to the midsection until Strickland began anticipating them. The next time Pereira dipped low, so too did Strickland's hands. Only, there was no body jab this time.
Instead, Pereira uncorked a left hook over the top, blasting Strickland's exposed chin to send him crashing into the canvas. Try as Strickland might to stand, he was sent crashing back down with a follow-up right straight and Pereira's trilogy bout with Adesanya was booked.
Check out Alex Pereira knocking out Sean Strickland:
The two longtime rivals crossed swords at UFC 281, and it was a difficult bout. Adesanya rocked Pereira badly at the end of round one, but the Brazilian survived to hear the horn. 'The Last Stylebender' also grappled more than he ever had, and by round five, it was clear that Pereira needed a finish, and he got it.
With less than a minute left, he stumbled his foe with a combination against the fence. It was enough for referee Marc Goddard to end the bout and award Pereira the TKO win and the UFC middleweight title. Alas, it was a title he failed to defend, as he was knocked out by Adesanya in an immediate rematch.
But it was not the end of Pereira's tale. He next made the move to light heavyweight, where he sought to claim the division's title, a feat that not even Adesanya had managed. Furthermore, he sought to do so against the man who first beat 'The Last Stylebender' in MMA, Jan Błachowicz.
In a hard fight where Pereira outstruck an exhausted Błachowicz, who sought to wrestle, the Brazilian won via split decision to earn a shot at the vacant title against former 205-pound champion Jiří Procházka. Within two rounds, 'Poatan' sealed his victory with a TKO to become the light heavyweight champion.
Check out the promo for UFC 300, which Alex Pereira will headline:
Now, the latest fighter to have held two different titles in the promotion has been called upon to headline the biggest card of the year: UFC 300. He will defend his light heavyweight title against former champion Jamahal Hill, and if he has his way, it will be his greatest performance yet.
