Following the phenomenal victory at UFC 300, Alex Pereira gets ready to defend his light heavyweight championship belt for the first time against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 303. The Brazilian’s move to become a double champion greatly impressed the fight fans. But now, the Champ-Champ has caught the attention of the fans with a sparring clip.
UFC 303 was initially set for Conor McGregor to make his return against Michael Chandler. However, McGregor’s yet-undisclosed injury led to the cancelation of the bout, and Pereira got the chance to fight Prochazka. Without a doubt, the LHW champ had expressed his desire to fight the Czech mixed martial artist on multiple occasions. In an attempt to save the event, Dana White granted Pereira his wish.
Fixated on claiming the win and defending his light heavyweight title, the ‘Poatan’ has begun his training. Needless to say, the fighter took training to the extremes. Recently, the heavyweight boxer, Dempsey McKean and the man with ‘hands of stone’ were involved in a little bit of sparring. The video footage was released by freak.mma on Instagram. The caption read, “Alex Pereira sparring with Australian heavyweight boxer Demsey McKean who has 22-1 boxing score with 15 KO’s.”
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As soon as the video clip crossed the threshold of Instagram, fight fans began pouring in their thoughts in the comments section. Even the Australian reacted with two fire emojis in the comments. However, the fight fans seemed worried about Pereira, as he sparred with the heavyweight boxer.
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Fans worried as Alex Pereira spars with HW boxer
Without a doubt, McKean’s record of 15 KOs had the fight fans worried about Pereira. One of the fans wrote, “Getting his a** kicked apparently.” Another fan was frantic because the ‘Poatan’ didn’t keep his guard up high. The fan wrote, “Why does bro never keep his guard up,” followed by a crying emoji. Meanwhile, one more comment read, “Poatan lowkey getting pieced up.”
Some of the fans were also conscious about the difference in Pereira’s and McKean’s size. One fan commented, “You can see that the big fella is taking it real easy on him. Imagine if he’d given Alex a concussion and taken him out of the Yiri fight.” “That guy made Alex look so small omg,” read another comment. One more fan wondered how the Brazilian made weight at 185 lbs. “Seeing him spar these heavyweights makes me wonder how the f**k he was making 185,” the comment read.
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While Pereira has established himself as an excellent striker, the fight fans seemed to wonder if his grappling prowess increased or not. One fan commented, “pereira looking sharp i hope his grappling has improved aswell even tho we dont see it that much.” But the praise for the champion was eminent. The fighting community was greatly impressed with how Pereira tends to dominate the Octagon. “To be fair only reason Alex is not a heavyweight is cause he’s kinda skinny, I love how he mostly works up and rarely trains under him big reason why he’s so dominant,” a fan wrote.
Doubtlessly, the fight fans were excited for Pereira’s training as he gears up to defend his LHW belt. What are your thoughts on Pereira sparring with heavyweight fighters? Let us know in the comments below.