Only three years ago, Alex Pereira made his UFC debut and since then he has quickly risen to dominate unlike anyone in the company. To put this in perspective, Jon Jones took 15 years to become a two-division champ, while Pereira achieved double champion status in just three.
While now ‘Poatan’ is eyeing a third belt, UFC veteran Chael Sonnen predicts his fighting days may be numbered—not due to retirement, but due to the fear of his nuke of a left hand.
In the most recent episode of their podcast, ‘Good Guy/ Bad Guy’ Sonnen and Cormier made their mid-year picks for awards such as fighter of the year, knockout of the year amongst others.
When Sonnen was asked who his pick for fighter of the year is, he simply named Pereira., even going on to call him the P4P best. But he had some bad news for Poatan fans as well.
Sonnen believes that Pereira will soon reach the levels of Tyson where nobody would want to get into the octagon with him for the fear of what he might do to them.
“Your days of seeing him fight are close to behind you. I don’t mean because he is going to retire… Anderson Silva and Mike Tyson… they had such fear they would shut people down in the locker room. The reason I say that for you is that Pereira is going to get to that point.”
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Pereira is just three years into his UFC career and in that time has achieved more than most have in a lifetime with the organization.
He has quickly established himself as the most dangerous knockout artist in the sport right now and is in strong contention to be amongst the most dangerous of all time in the UFC.
After his recent performance against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 303, ‘Poatan’ has just one more worthy challenger left at 205-pounds, according to Sonnen.
Magomed Ankalaev to dethrone Alex Pereira?
After the win at UFC 303, Poatan stated he wanted to fight at least one more time this year.
The common consensus is that Ankalaev is next in line for a title shot. And the Russian fighter has been trying to drag himself through the mud calling out Pereira and even going to the extent of trying to convince him that he would fight the striker on his feet.
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Ankalaev does have a point. It doesn’t matter if Poatan thinks he is boring, the fact remains that he’s winning and there’s just no one left anymore.
However, if Pereira beats Ankalaev as well, Sonnen believes that no one at 250-pounds will want to take on ‘Poatan’ given what he is doing to his opponents.
Well, except there’s Jon Jones. One can go through an entire cinematic universe worth of villains but a Superman gone wrong at the end of the line can ruin it all for everyone, your Homelanders and Omni-Mans if one may call them.
And that is what Jon Jones is. He is the big boss fight. Everyone is on their way to greatness till they meet the gatekeeper.
