Alex Pereira has been making waves with his worldwide sparring sessions lately. After training with the Chinese star, Zhilei Zhang, and Australian boxer, Dempsey McKean, the UFC light heavyweight champion went to train in South Korea. Therein, he sparred with the Asian Games silver medalist and continental gold medalist, Kim Hyeong-kyu. Needless to say, the man with the hands of stone didn’t back away from showing why he’s the UFC champion and left the fight fans flabbergasted.

The video of the sparring session has gone viral on social media platforms, and professionals like Conor McGregor reacted to it. Although the ‘Mystic Mac’ claimed that it was “pointless” in a now-deleted tweet, Pereira gave a few hard shots to the South Korean boxer. The ‘Poatan’ forced Hyeong-kyu to keep his hands up, allowing him to throw only a couple of jabs. Meanwhile, the Brazilian faced him with his iconic low guard as he sent forth his strong hands. 

Soon after the sparring session, ‘The Korean Hunk’ took to Instagram and shared a picture with the ‘Poatan’. No doubt, he was pretty content with the session as he captioned, “He was a good boxing partner. His punches were awesome.”  

But when the sparring video began circling around different social media platforms, the fight fans took to the comments section to express themselves. No doubt, they were worried. But it wasn’t a feeling toward ‘Poatan’. Let’s see what the fighting community had to say about Alex Pereira’s sparring session.

Alex Pereira stuns the fighting community while sparring with Kim Hyeong-kyu

Redcorner MMA shared the video on Instagram, and Pereira’s strength was clearly visible in the footage. The video was captioned, “Alex Pereira has a crazy spar with the Korean Hunk!” Despite blocking some of the ‘Poatan’s punches, ‘The Korean Hunk’ felt the power the Brazilian champ held in his arms. This was pointed out by one of the worried fans who wrote, “Even when the guy blocks it still looks so painful.” Meanwhile, another fan reflected on Pereira’s power by quoting, “Alex was like alright so we goin serious? Ill take it to level 2 outta 10 and bro met his match already.”

The UFC LHW champion has a nick for knocking his opponents out. After all, 7 of his 9 UFC victories came via KOs. However, he was trying to pull back his punches while sparring. One of the fans took note and wrote, “He’s a KO artist & he’s not trying to KO the guy they’re sparring smh.” Another fan claimed, “This guy been preparing for Alex for a damn long time. This just shows how versatile Alex is.” A few others decided to commend ‘The Korean Hunk’ for sparring with Pereira without any headgear. A comment read, “Props to guy who sparred him with no headgear 😂 and threw some good jabs in there.”

Similar reactions were seen when the video found its way to Reddit. One of the fans wrote, “Alex clearly pulls multiple punches where he could have sent the guy to the shadow realm, meanwhile the dude does tag him with jabs, but nothing with a lot of strength behind either. Honestly, looks like pretty good sparring.” But some others claimed that the ‘Poatan’ was training his face and head to withstand the blows he would receive in the Octagon. Well, that was the only explanation the fight fans could gather as to why Pereira often had his guard down. One of the fans commented, “Poatan talks about sparring with hands down in his yt. He’s conditioning his face and head. Sounds crazy, but he truly is the juggernaut.”

Finally, the fighting community commended the Brazilian for training with top-notch boxers around the world. After all, Hyeong-kyu had accolades that proved his stance in the boxing realm. On top of that, Pereira also sparred with Zhilei Zhang for 4 rounds before his last fight with Israel Adesanya. A comment read, “He’s sparring elite level boxers. National Oympic team / Asian Games guys. Poatan looked great for sparring against that level of competition.”

Pereira has been striving to become the best fighter in the world. Well, that’s the only explanation that can justify his travels and training sessions with various world-class athletes. No wonder Jon Jones wanted to face him in the Octagon. Is that why Pereira has been training so hard? That remains to be found in the near future. 

What are your thoughts about Pereira’s sparring session with ‘The Korean Hunk’? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.