UFC Freedom 250: Alex Pereira nears MMA immortality with good friend Glover Teixeira guiding his path
As the often-told origin story goes of the friendship between UFC superstar Alex Pereira and his former champion head coach Glover Teixeira, the two first crossed paths in the summer of 2020 when Teixeira, through a mutual friend, brought Pereira in to spar as preparation for his fight against Thiago Santos that November. Texieira, then 41, was a 2-to-1 betting underdog against Santos, a former UFC title challenger. And little did anyone know that his third-round submission of Santos would catapult him directly into a title shot against Jan Blachowicz, where Teixeira completed an unlikely late-career resurgence by capturing the UFC light heavyweight title some seven years after he lost a 2014 title shot against Jon Jones. At the start of the pandemic, however, Pereira was far less known in MMA circles beyond the fact that he owned a pair of kickboxing victories over eventual UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. At 32, Pereira may have been a former two-division champion and Hall-of-Fame GLORY kickboxer who set promotional records for wins and title defenses but he was just 2-1 as an MMA fighter, having been submitted in his 2015 pro debut. Sign up for Paramount+ and watch UFC Freedom 250 live for no additional fee — every UFC numbered event and UFC Fight Night is included with your subscription! Plans start as low as $8.99/month or $89.99/year!
Traditionally, kickboxers have struggled with the transition to MMA’s elite level, largely due to their lack of exposure to the grappling elements of the sport that are honed through years of wrestling and jiu-jitsu training. But when Teixeira first started sparring with his fellow Brazilian at his gym, Teixeira MMA and Fitness in Bethel, Connecticut, he quickly realized two things.Not only was Pereira humble and down to Earth, he was very eager to learn. Pereira, who would go on to move to Connecticut and briefly live inside of Texeira’s house before getting settled, went on to become not just Teixeira’s star pupil, but a fighter who just over five years later finds himself on the verge of MMA immortality from a historical sense enter Sunday’s UFC Freedom 250 card from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C.
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The 38-year-old Pereira (13-3), who went on to run through the middleweight and light heavyweight divisions in record time to become possibly the biggest star in the sport, will make his heavyweight debut in the co-main event against Ciryl Gane for the interim title. A victory would make Pereira the first three-division champion in UFC history.
For as storybook as Pereira’s MMA journey has become over the past five years, defeating every UFC opponent he has faced while winning titles in two divisions and defeating six former champions along the way, it’s one that likely never would’ve even started had it not been for his ability to grasp, so quickly, the kind of ground skills that typically take as long as a decade to master.”I’ll tell you what, I was very impressed when I first saw him,” Teixeira told CBS Sports on Tuesday. “To be honest, in the first month that we trained together, just the effort that he put into wrestling and jiu-jitsu. He has a special ability to learn quickly and develop things like that.”When you come from another sport and put that much effort into something that is going to be your weakness, for sure you will end up being a UFC champion.”
It may sound easy for Teixeira, now 46, to say something like that in hindsight. But he was also saying the same thing back in November 2021 ahead of Pereira’s UFC debut when Teixeira, who quickly became Pereira’s trainer and mentor, predicted his pupil would be a UFC champion within one year. Teixeira was almost perfect in his prediction. Three wins, one year and six days later, Pereira rallied in Round 5 to finish his longtime rival Adesanya to dramatically claim the UFC 185-pound title. “I knew it. I told everybody in every interview that this guy was going to be a champion at some point within a year,” Teixeira said. “I kind of knew because for a kickboxer to come from a different sport and put that much effort into grappling, a lot of the times the body doesn’t let them do it. The body will break down and get hurt. But Alex, I knew for sure he was going to be that guy.”
Making up for lost time, Pereira fought three times per year for three straight years to open his UFC career. Even though he would lose his rematch to Adesanya via dramatic second-round knockout in 2023, he instantly moved up to light heavyweight and stopped Jiri Prochazka two fights later to become a two-division champion in only seven fights, two years and five days after making his UFC debut.
Teixeira wasn’t joking when he spoke about the ability of Pereira’s body to persevere through the grind. In fact, it was Pereira’s willingness to stay so active despite injuries while accepting dangerous fights on short notice that allowed him to headline some of the UFC’s biggest events over his five years to become one of the promotion’s most beloved fighters of all-time due to his style, stoic nature and humility, despite the language gap in the U.S. that still prevails. Even when Pereira’s body did betray one time in a March 2025 light heavyweight title loss to Magomed Anakalev, after injuries kept Pereira from putting in a full training camp that left him lifeless inside the Octagon, he rebounded seven months later to finish Ankalaev in just 80 seconds to regain the title in their rematch.
But despite Pereira’s historic success and the fast nature of his stardom, which led to sponsored appearances all over the globe, “Poatan” stayed true to his humble nature and has tried to use his platform as a chance to bring others hope by sharing tales of the alcoholism he overcame in his early 20s and the fact that he went from working in a tire shop after a childhood of poverty in Brazil to becoming an international superstar. “My success really doesn’t change anything,” Pereira told CBS Sports on Tuesday through an interpreter. “Maybe it does for the expectations of the fans. But for my life, everything has stayed the same.” In fact, during a sitdown last month in New York with Paramount+ cameras, Pereira was far less interested in talking about what becoming a three-division champion might do to his legacy as he was taking pride in how much it might inspire others.
“No one has ever done that before (becoming champion in three divisions), so to try to do that is important,” Pereira said. “Also, the more we do, the more we have, the more opportunities we have to show people things about my life and I show the struggles that I’ve had in the past. I’ve showed my childhood and my upbringing. People understand that they can overcome that and (it) shows an inspiration for people to get things right and better in their lives.”Pereira, who has stopped just shy of 80% of takedowns in the UFC, may be humble regarding his potential historical placement on Sunday with a win but it’s a topic that has been a major narrative for months.Some believe there would need to be an asterisk next to Pereira’s accomplishment considering it’s an interim title fight. But the fact that full champion Tom Aspinall’s return from double eye surgery (caused by Gane’s illegal pokes in their no contest in November) is still unknown and the fact that Aspinall’s new manager, boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, has been publicly calling for his UFC release means Pereira could become the recognized champion with a win in short order.
The other argument surrounds whether Pereira, who is 10-2 with eight knockouts over his UFC run, might be able to leapfrog the short list of fighters who are often included in the sport’s G.O.A.T. debate, which typically includes Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, Demetrious Johnson, Khabib Nurmagomedov and Fedor Emelianenko. Dana White made headlines last week when he publicly declared that Pereira would pass Jones as the greatest fighter in history with a win, which brought with it polarizing reactions from MMA fans, media, historians and fighters. But White, who has long campaigned for the two-division champion Jones as the best ever, doubled down during Tuesday’s media scrum. “I don’t think he would be my G.O.A.T., I think he would be everyone’s G.O.A.T.,” White said. “The guy used to make 185 pounds. And if he wins a belt at heavyweight on Sunday, it would be pretty tough to argue he’s not the G.O.A.T.
“(Pereira) doesn’t even look like the same guy (as a heavyweight). You have to do a double take. And when you are talking about the G.O.A.T., then you look at what he did in kickboxing. To make the transitioning from kickboxing to this and do this well, it’s unbelievable. You would think that wrestlers would chew him up and spit him out but not the case in three different weight classes.” White went on to praise both Pereira’s activity level and the fact that he has been willing to leave international vacations early when UFC called in order to make short turnarounds for big fights as the reason that separates him from others in the conversation. And Teixeira, who agrees with White, also believes it comes down to Pereira’s exciting fighting style. “It’s the way he finishes the fights and just the brutality that he brings to the Octagon,” Teixeira said. “It’s amazing and it’s going to put him up there. Winning three belts in three weight classes, for sure, will put him up there at No. 1.”
Although Jones remains the most popular choice for MMA G.O.A.T., largely due to his legendary light heavyweight run and the fact that he’s virtually unbeaten (save for a 2009 disqualification loss for elbows that would now be legal), there are plenty of unavoidable red flags on his legacy. Jones was stripped of UFC titles a record three times for disciplinary reasons, has failed multiple drug tests, sat out three years of his prime over pay disputes while avoiding Francis Ngannou and abruptly retired last year to shamelessly duck Aspinall (before asking to return). Nurmagomedov retired undefeated while still in his prime as pound-for-pound king but, in part due to injuries, didn’t quite face enough elite talent to make his case automatic. Silva, the longtime middleweight king, never fought for a title in a second weight class and hung on too long, losing seven of his last eight fights. GSP, meanwhile, returned from a five-year retirement to move up and win the middleweight title but never defended it and never fought again. Pereira’s legacy doesn’t have any major blemishes of note. And the fact that he’s operating at such an elite, P4P level this close to age 40 after coming to the sport so late has to be factored into the argument for his placement among the greatest should he conquer a third division, as does his ability to bounce back so impressively from a rare defeat. There’s also an argument to make that a lack of a difficult weight cut at heavyweight (where there is a limit of 265 pounds) and the fact that the division has historically lacked depth could mean Pereira might have a shot at sustained success. He told CBS Sports he walked around at 242 pounds as a light heavyweight, which made the cut to 205 pounds incredibly grueling. But even though Pereira has openly talked about such a move to heavyweight both publicly and privately for years, Teixeira said he always believed he was joking.”I was like never really thinking he would do it or that he was serious about it,” Teixeira said. “But, eventually, the last couple of fights he started talking about it. He was getting heavy and he said, ‘Glover, I want to be a heavyweight. I don’t want to cut weight anymore.’ Every time he cuts the weight, he starts talking about it.”One thing is for certain, Pereira likely wouldn’t be where he is today without Teixeira and Teixeira wouldn’t have been able to expand his Connecticut gym and become one of the sport’s most elite coaches without a student quite like Pereira. The friendship between the two outside the Octagon has been just as important as the success they have combined to have inside of it. And the love and respect both have for each other was best exemplified by a 2023 gift Pereira had delivered to Teixeira’s house — a Harley-Davidson motorcycle — that left the former champion in tears. “It’s important to be with somebody who has that good of a heart,” Teixeira said, thinking back on the moment. “I know Alex, when he first came to my house in 2020, and you see the star today he has become, he’s still humble and still the same person. The gift surprised me because of thoughtful he is. I talked about how, ‘One day, I want to buy a Harley Davidson and want to be cruising around.’ He thought of that and the next day after the fight, the motorcycle was there.”
Diterbitkan : 2026-06-11 14:39:00
sumber : www.cbssports.com
