Jamahall Hill and Alex Pereira took their rivalry to the next level with an altercation at the UFC Performance Institute! The light heavyweights almost went in for a fight, but thanks to everyone present over there, things were cooled down. But soon after that, ‘Sweet Dreams’ took to his YouTube talk show to reflect on the altercation between him and ‘Poatan’. Let me tell you, there was a huge motivation behind why Hill restrained himself from going up bare-knuckled against Pereira. And it wasn’t because he got scared like everyone on the internet is claiming.  

The biggest hint to it came from the viral video of the altercation. Therein, ‘Sweet Dreams’ could be heard saying, “For free? For Free? We don’t need no gloves!” So why didn’t he go up to the cage and fight Pereira? 

Jamahal Hill reflects on his scuffle with Alex Pereira

Through his YouTube channel, the #3 light heavyweight contender said, “The PI earlier and Alex was there. I’d just finished working out. He was working out. And I just went to go hug. I go up to have a conversation, you know. We don’t have to talk about it across Twitter, because I’m right here, you know.” When he first approached the LHW champion, he tried to keep his distance. But Hill was simply thinking about Pereira’s plan to move to the heavyweight realm. “Don’t run to heavyweight… We need to run this back,” he responded. But things began to worsen when the Brazilian champ sought out his translator. The man with the hands of stone was ready to take on ‘Sweet Dreams’ then and there. Even Hill was ready to go on bare-knuckled. But they had to pull back. 

Hill continued, “His translator said, ‘You’re still sleeping, you still woke up, or s–t.’ I’m wide awake now. You can get put to sleep for real. Then it kinda went to whole like, ‘Come get the gloves and go on the cage.’ To which I reply, ‘What the f— we need gloves for? We’re not getting paid right now.’ You know what I mean? I get paid to fight, I get paid to put on gloves to fight. When I’m out in a situation like that, we can throw hands right now… We can just throw hands right now. What the f— we need gloves for? We got hands.” 

All Pereira did following the heated exchange of words was stand still. On top of not getting paid to fight, a physical altercation would definitely ruin the fighters’ public image. He went on, “We’re not getting paid… Because here’s the thing. If I’d just reached out there and we were fighting right there, I could possibly lose out on a fight, or my next fight, any opportunities I have left. I got restrictions now at the PI and these other things and stuff like that. We get paid. We got a lot of money the first time we fought. So why would I not make a lot of money when I knock his a— out the next time?”

When the duo fought at UFC 300, it was Pereira who came out on top with yet another win via KO under his belt. But Hill believed that the storyline was all messed up, with the referee interfering with the bout. Well, according to him, the outcome of the bout might have been different if the fight hadn’t stopped in the second round. Let’s see why.

Why did ‘Sweet Dreams’ call Alex Pereira a cheater?

Needless to say, Hill was pretty unhappy with the loss at UFC 300. He seemed to believe that Pereira actually set him up for the KO. Pereira had just signaled the referee regarding a groin shot, and believing that the referee would give him some official time out, Hill put his guard down. But that was the mistake he never should have made. Pereira claimed that he was okay, and within those 4 seconds, he closed the distance between them. And the rest is history.

Frustrated with the outcome of the match, Hill took to YT and lashed out at the Brazilian. He enquired, “Why’d you signal to the ref then in the first place? What was the point of you signaling to the ref in that moment if the kick didn’t hit you low and you didn’t want it stopped? Yet you grab low. You signal to the ref to let him know that you got kicked. But all of a sudden, you don’t want the fight to be stopped.” 

Even Joe Rogan on episode #155 of the JRE MMA Show, pointed out this dirty tactic played out by Pereira. He said, “Now, I’m not making any excuses for Jamahal, and Jamahal can take a loss as good as anybody… but he’s got a point here. It’s not a perfect point because they had engaged again, but Pereira had closed that gap to a point where Jamahal wasn’t letting him do that early.” 

We would definitely love to see Hill and Pereira fight once again, but it’s gonna be epic if they fought bare-knuckled, don’t you think? Let us know what you think of the scuffle in the comments down below.