Alex Pereira Says a Boxing Move Is Almost Impossible at 39
Alex Pereira shut down a move to Misfits Boxing, telling Fred Talks Fighting that seven fights left on his UFC contract make a ring career kind of impossible at 39.
The former two-division champion was at the media stop for his coach, Plinio Cruz, who boxes Gary Olive on Saturday’s Misfits card, live on DAZN. Pereira answered in Portuguese.
Cruz put it in English beside him.
“Well, with seven fights left in his UFC contract, in thirty nine, it’s kinda impossible, but he’s happy to be here with me.”
That deal is the eight-fight contract Pereira signed earlier this year, when he also vacated the light heavyweight title and moved to heavyweight. One fight is already gone. He still has seven left, and he is not treating the rest as a sprint toward boxing.
The interviewer, noting Cruz is 40, floated the math anyway. “Forty, okay, well, give it three, four more years, two fights a year, and get there pretty soon.”
Cruz answered for him. “No, he’s fine.”
Pereira’s next assignment is already set. He meets Sergei Pavlovich in the five-round co-main event of UFC 335 on December 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, his second heavyweight fight and a presumed No. 1 contender bout.
The first one did not go his way. On June 14 at UFC Freedom 250, on the South Lawn of the White House, Pereira was stopped in the second round by Ciryl Gane in an interim heavyweight title fight.
He has blamed referee Herb Dean for that result, arguing shots landed to the back of his head. Dana White was asked what Pereira still has to show at 265 pounds and kept it short. “A win,” White said. “A win will help.”
The boxing question was a fair one. Pereira was a professional kickboxer before the UFC, and Cruz is crossing into Misfits this weekend while his fighter stands on a DAZN backdrop. Pereira did not take the opening.
He also did not sound like a man waiting out the contract so he can box later. The interviewer offered a path of two fights a year for three or four years. The answer that came back was that he is fine where he is.
That leaves the heavyweight picture in front of him. A win over Pavlovich would put a former light heavyweight champion back in the title conversation at 265 after the Gane loss. A loss would raise the same questions White just waved off, about weight, timing, and whether the move up still holds.
Seven fights at his current pace is not a short stay. Pereira turns the page at UFC 335 in December, with Cruz in a Misfits ring two days from now and no boxing date of his own on the table.
