Alex Pereira wants to become the UFC’s first-ever three-division champion. Or at least he did before losing the title to Magomed Ankalaev at their UFC 313 clash earlier this year. Right now, the Brazilian striking maestro is more focused on getting the lightweight title back. And if all goes well, his triple-champ aspirations may just come to fruition.

This is why UFC heavyweight star Tai Tuivasa‘s recent revelations about sparring with ‘Poatan’ is so interesting for fans who want ‘Poatan’ to move up. The Australian brawler joined Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson on the latter’s ‘JAXXON’ podcast, where he was asked about his experience training with the then-light heavyweight champ last June.

“I’ve seen some videos of you spending time with Alex Pereira. Yeah, were you training or you guys just messing around?” Jackson’s co-host, Bear Digedio, asked the Australian heavyweight.

“Oh, bro, he’s cool. He’s a cool guy. He hangs out with one of my boys back home. So he’s real cool. Been out, seen him a few times,” Tuivasa said. “Did you guys spar? You guys train?” Degideo inquired, already knowing the answer to that question.

“Oh, yeah, I rocked up bro… I rocked up, my mate goes ‘come to the gym please.’ I said no. I know he’s going to make me want to do something. I haven’t trained bro. Anyway, I rocked up and got the f—ing s–t punched out of me for f—ing fifteen minutes. Punched the f—ing s–t out of me. I was thinking ‘Yeah thanks,'” ‘Bam Bam’ added.

In a previous interview with UFC.com, Tuivasa has admitted that so bad was the beating he got from Pereira that it served as a wake-up call for him. The heavyweight was set to face Jairzinho Rozenstruik in August 2024, two months after the sparring session with Pereira. And just two days after getting the ‘f—ing s—t’ punched out of him, ‘Bam Bam’ flew out to Dubai. “I was like, ‘S—t, I better get back to work!'” Unfortunately, ‘Bam Bam’ lost that fight via a split decision, but it was a close fight.

Does Tai Tuivasa sparring session indicate that Alex Pereira could win the heavyweight title?

Some would say that this domination of Tuivasa proves ‘Poatan’ can fight at heavyweight and succeed there. But that would perhaps be a bit too hasty of a conclusion to make. After all, as Tuivasa pointed out, he wasn’t in camp at the time, and thus not in a position to give ‘Poatan’ a very competitive sparring session.

While the 15-8 Tuivasa who is on a five-fight losing streak, is a kill-or-be-killed kinda guy, he’s not really in the same bracket from a skill standpoint as a Jon Jones or a Tom Aspinall. Another point to note is that Tuivasa is a power puncher who holds one-punch KO power in his hands.

But in sparring he would, of course, not go all out. In a real fight, perhaps the Aussie could land a hard one on ‘Poatan’ and stop him, but people don’t generally try to knock each other out in sparring. But we at least know, skill-wise, that Pereira can hang with at least one top-ten heavyweight.

Drawing any more inferences from his sparring session with ‘Bam Bam’, in our opinion, would be a bit misguided. But then again, ‘Poatan’ is an all-time great and no stranger to prevailing despite the odds against him. He may well find it in him to beat a Tom Aspinall or a Jon Jones and win the heavyweight title, too. But all we’re saying is that fans shouldn’t read too much into the fact that he dominated an out-of-shape, out-of-camp Tuivasa in a training session. What do you think about Tai Tuivasa’s revelations about his training session with Alex Pereira?