The countdown to UFC 320 is heating up, and Alex Pereira finds himself under a familiar spotlight. The former champion isn’t just battling the preparation for Magomed Ankalaev inside the Octagon; he’s also fighting public perception outside of it. Fans and pundits are once again questioning if ‘Poatan’ is taking his training seriously. Why?
Because, just like before his first clash with Ankalaev at UFC 313, the Brazilian star has been spotted traveling, filming, and juggling commitments. But this time, Alex Pereira isn’t letting the critics define the story, as in a recent video uploaded to his YouTube channel, the knockout artist addressed the noise directly.
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Alex Pereira lays out his preparation for Magomed Ankalaev in a response to his critics
He began by stating, “I’m very excited for this fight, for those who know me and always by my side as well as everyone else, especially the last camp, you guys have seen the big difference, the evolution in technique, the physical conditioning, my body feels great, I’m feeling great. I went to shoot some scenes and people started to come to me and said when I was at the movie, ‘Poatan started to travel again.’”
The criticism he’s talking about reignited when photos emerged of Alex Pereira shooting scenes for his acting debut in A24’s ‘Onslaught’. His tactical costume and face paint made headlines, but also raised doubts. Fans speculated that filming meant less time training.
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Pereira, however, insists those fears are misplaced as he continued, “I was 7 weeks away, and you can see in all the interviews that it was 6 weeks of camp for me, so I had 7 weeks, everything was planned, I had gone to Brazil, I had done the physical preparation of 30 days I started, I arrived here, I continued, I didn’t even have a break.”
Yet, even during his trips, training never stopped. Pereira revealed he sparred and conditioned on the road, noting his work in Uruguay and Argentina as he shared in the recent video, “I went to Uruguay, to Argentina, but I was running, people followed me. I saw them doing sparring, there were lighter people, smaller people, I was the biggest and the heaviest but I did 8 rounds with 6 different people so I was able to explore my gas well there, and I saw how I was doing there, without starting the camp.”
As mentioned earlier, the narrative of Pereira’s travels isn’t new. Before UFC 313, his social media was full of footage from Australia and Korea. Critics, including Daniel Cormier, questioned whether his nomadic schedule was harming his training quality. The former champion brushed it off then, saying he had his entire team with him and that everything was planned. After Magomed Ankalaev beat him soundly by unanimous decision, though, that criticism only grew louder.
Still, questions remain. Ankalaev already proved he could nullify Pereira’s power, handing him his first loss at 205 pounds. And according to a former UFC fighter and a trusted voice in the sport, ‘Poatan’ might have made one crucial mistake in that fight that has nothing to do with his travel schedule!
Pereira claps back at ‘travel’ narrative but Dan Hardy believes “respect” led to Ankalaev loss
Dan Hardy, a man who once challenged Georges St-Pierre for the UFC welterweight crown, believes Pereira fought with hesitation at UFC 313. In a recent interview with Helen Yee, he pointed out, “I think maybe [Pereira] had a little bit too much respect for [Magomed] Ankalaev in the last fight…”
For Hardy, Pereira’s true danger comes when he applies pressure. He pointed to past performances where Pereira thrived by forcing opponents into reactive mistakes, like his fights against Sean Strickland, or Jamahal Hill, as he further stated, “you feel that pressure of his kind of frame coming at you and people feel like they need to react.”
In simpler terms, instead of stalking forward and imposing his size, he gave the Russian room to operate. The result? A fight where Magomed Ankalaev looked comfortable and in control, outpointing Alex Pereira in a largely forgettable decision. But Hardy also offered a blueprint for change.
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According to him, “If I’m [Alex] Pereira, I would be thinking about getting as close to him as possible, getting in his face, maybe even try and use a bit of Thai clinch just to kind of manage the clinch a bit. He’s going to be better defending takedowns on the front foot as well, right?… It’s better if he’s pressuring forward and forcing Ankalaev to shoot under pressure.”
As such, Alex Pereira finds himself fighting on two fronts: the critics who question his focus and the rival who already proved he could beat him. He insists his travels are calculated and his training uninterrupted, yet Dan Hardy’s words cut deeper: maybe it wasn’t the trips at all, but the respect he showed inside the cage that cost him the belt.