Dricus Du Plessis Put On Alert as Alex Pereira’s Mentor Reveals Plan For His ‘Next Fight’ After Magomed Ankalaev Rematch

“I have a feeling you don’t want the rematch after I agreed to August,” Magomed Ankalaev wrote to Alex Pereira on X last week. ‘Poatan’, of course, lost his lightweight title and some of his sheen in his UFC 313 clash against the Dagestani dynamo. All the parties—’Big Ank’, ‘Poatan’, and Dana White—were on board with an immediate rematch after the fight.

But it seems that the Brazilian former kickboxing champion is dragging his feet on the rematch. This might be because the former champ just thinks August is too soon, and he needs more time to prepare for Ankalaev’s forward pressure and stifling grappling. Either that or he may well choose to forego the Ankalaev fight altogether.

At least that is the impression some are getting from ‘Poatan’s coach, Glover Teixeira, comments on ‘The Coach and the Casual Podcast’. The former UFC champ was asked what he thought about the prospect of ‘Poatan’ fighting reigning middleweight champ, Dricus Du Plessis.

“I think it’s [Pereira vs. Du Plessis is] a good fight. I think that’s probably the next fight for [Pereira]. Who [else] is next for Alex?… I don’t know if he can [make 185 again], I’m not going to say that he can’t. He probably can. It’s just like too much,” Teixeira said.

Now it’s important to note that it’s not clear if the coach means ‘next fight’ as in literally Pereira’s next fight, or ‘next fight’ in the sense of after the Ankalaev rematch—which Teixeira may be taking as a given. It seems likely he means it in the latter sense. Either way, Du Plessis-Pereira is an intriguing matchup.

Of course, the duo have gone back and forth online, calling each other out, which has created some drama and a storyline for a possible fight in the future. But the biggest question is—at what weight would they fight if they indeed end up facing each other in the near future? Would Du Plessis move up to 205?

He could, but that is hard to see happening as long as the South African is the middleweight champ. So would Alex Pereira go back to middleweight again? Isn’t this the same guy who had moved up to 205 two years ago because he just couldn’t make 205 anymore? It is, but things seem to have changed since then.

What Alex Pereira thinks of moving down to 185 to fight Dricus Du Plessis

“I want to go down one more time to the middleweight and go for the belt,” Pereira wrote in an Instagram post last September. “Hey Dricus, bring your will to fight me so you can prove that you are better than me, with your public statement it is easy to make this happen, Chama 🔥”

As you well know, Pereira has unfinished business at 185. He became the UFC middleweight champ in a shocking come-from-behind upset win over Israel Adesanya at UFC 281. However, ‘Poatan’ got toes-curled knocked out by ‘Izzy’ in their blockbuster UFC 287 rematch in 2023.

One of the reasons Pereira got knocked out in such a brutal manner is that he had to severely dehydrate himself to make 185, which makes one susceptible to being knocked out. In fact, so terrible an effect the cut to middleweight was having on the Brazilian’s body that he immediately moved up to 205 and didn’t stick around for a trilogy title clash with Adesanya, which would probably have been the biggest fight of either man’s career. However, it seems that the Brazilian former champ is now ready to go back to 185 and take care of his unfinished business. What do you think about Glover Texeira’s thoughts on the Pereira-Du Plessis clash?