Alex Pereira’s Kickboxing Career: When Did He Start Fighting? KOs, Record, Title Victories, and More

Alex Pereira may have entered the UFC in 2021 but became one of the hottest commodities of the promotion in just a span of three years and just 8 fights. The fame that he boasts, being a two-weight champion and currently holding the 205-pound strap, is nothing less than that of a superstar in the sport of MMA. But prior to his rivalry with former two-time middleweight champ, Israel Adesanya. Not many people were aware that he was a major force in the world of kickboxing before his MMA advent.

Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya fought under the Glory banner before they came to the UFC, although ‘The Last Stylebender’ came a few years earlier. Hence, ahead of ‘Poatan’s fight against Jiri Prochazka this weekend at UFC 303, we’ll have a look at the kickboxing record of Pereira, but let’s start from the beginning.

How did Alex Pereira start kickboxing?

Alex Pereira’s childhood was a very tough one. His family was abjectly poor as he grew up in the streets of the famed city of Sao Paulo.  As stated on Glory’s website, he decided to drop out of school when he turned 12 years old and started working at a tire shop and even offered mechanic services at a tender age. Working there would later make him develop an alcohol addiction, as he used to drink a lot of a local Brazilian rum called cachaca.

The light heavyweight champion would develop such a tolerance for alcohol that he’d drink almost a liter a day by the time he was 16 years old. began his amateur kickboxing career in 2009. But later, when Alex Pereira turned 21, he started working in a kickboxing gym, which was his first introduction to that martial arts discipline.

Getting into kickboxing seemed to help a whole lot as it was the game-changer that began his amateur kickboxing career in 2009. Soon after, he would start his amateur career, and slowly get into the professional scene. Now, let us take a look at Alex Pereira’s kickboxing record.

Is ‘Poatan’ one of the best kickboxers? His record and career

Well, it won’t be wrong to say that Alex Pereira started showcasing his prowess in sports pretty early, as he amassed a 25-3 record in his amateur career. But he once declared publicly that he had suffered all three of his losses against the same individual. Pereira decided to take up the sport professionally in 2012. He debuted under a Brazilian kickboxing and mixed martial arts promotion called ‘Jungle Fight’.

The 36-year-old decided to go for a change of promotion and joined the WGP Kickboxing. This is where he achieved his first-ever title in the sport, as he became the WGP 85kg title holder in 2015. Following this feat, the Brazilian went for another change of promotions as he joined the noted kickboxing promotion, ‘Glory’. It was during his ‘Glory’ tenure that he had three clashes with Israel Adesanya. Well, fans may already know that he won all three of them. So yeah, we can make a claim that Alex Pereira is one of the best athletes to have competed in kickboxing because there he achieved a feat in Glory Kickboxing that nobody else did before. Let’s take a look at that, shall we?

How many titles has Alex Pereira won in Kickboxing? Was he a double champ?

Following his fifth middleweight title defense in Glory, Pereira received a chance to become the two-division champion of the promotion. But it was not an easy task for him to defeat the then-glory light heavyweight king, Artem Vakhitov.

‘Poatan’ crowned himself the Glory two-division champ in January 2021 after defeating Vakhitov by a unanimous decision. This stands as the biggest feat of his kickboxing career. A summary of Pereira’s professional kickboxing career will tell us that he holds an overall record of 33-7. Further, it also includes as many as 21 wins by KOs.

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At UFC 303, Jiri Prochazka could be chasing the title for the last time and may not get a shot at Alex Pereira again. As such, he’s going to come prepared for his Brazilian opponent. In such a situation, it’s quite obvious that the fans will expect to witness an enthralling war between the two elite strikers during the promotion. Who do you think will have the last laugh?