LAS VEGAS — Alex Pereira has reclaimed his throne, and he’s already looking beyond it.
The legendary knockout artist added another defining chapter to his seemingly never-ending rise at UFC 320, finishing Magomed Ankalaev with strikes just 80 seconds into their light heavyweight title rematch Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The fast and emphatic victory not only avenged Pereira’s lone setback at 205 pounds, it also made him UFC’s first two-time light heavyweight champion since Jon Jones.
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For Pereira, the win was personal — unlike in past rematches against rivals. The stoic Brazilian took issue with Ankalaev’s relentless stream of dismissive comments and trash talk since their first fight ended with an Ankalaev decision win in March, and made it clear Saturday night that the bad blood fueled him.
“He said a lot of things. That I was going to go back and work at the tire shop, and just a lot of things through this whole time that he shouldn’t have said,” Pereira said at UFC 320’s post-fight press conference.
As usual, Pereira, 38, let his fists do the talking, flattening the now-former champion in signature fashion and snapping Ankalaev’s 14-fight unbeaten streak. And while most newly-crowned champions may take a deeper moment to celebrate, “Poatan” was already thinking about his next mountain to climb.
And the ideal challenge Pereira has in mind comes in the form of a recently retired all-time great.
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“All I want is a super fight at heavyweight,” Pereira said.
“With all due respect I have for this situation, and I’ve said this in the back, a lot of people try to create a lot of stuff around this — I was going to ask for Jon Jones at the White House [card in June 2026]. [But] with everything that happened, it’s not the right time to talk about it.”
“I want a superfight,” Pereira later reiterated. “It would be at the White House against Jon Jones. That’s a superfight.”
The poor timing Pereira speaks of is a reference to the passing of Jones’ older brother, former NFL defensive lineman Arthur Jones, who unexpectedly passed away at age 39 this past Friday. Pereira called for a moment of silence inside the T-Mobile Arena to honor Arthur Jones immediately following Saturday’s title win, prompting a grateful response from the former two-division UFC champion.
Despite potentially suffering a broken toe in the Ankalaev fight, Pereira says he has no intention of slowing down. And while a jump to heavyweight could complicate the UFC’s title picture, he doesn’t believe vacating the belt he just re-earned would be necessary.
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UFC CEO Dana White, while openly untrustworthy of Jones’ reliability, confirmed that Pereira’s team has been seriously considering the move to heavyweight. That, however, doesn’t mean White’s fully on board.
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“I was at work and I had a bunch of meetings [Saturday] afternoon, and I went over at the [UFC Performance Institute] and he was over at the P.I.,” White said of Pereira. “I was like, ‘You’re the last guy I expected here today. What are you doing here?’ And they were telling me, ‘We want to fight at heavyweight.’ I said, ‘Uh, how about we win tonight, and then we can talk about heavyweight.’ There’s still fights here in this [light heavyweight] division.
“He was a middleweight [before this]. … It’s not that I have any reservations about it — the guy is in a division that there’s still interesting fights. I don’t know. I like the guy so much, we’ll see. We’ll have to talk about it. I just don’t see why [he moves up in weight] unless he wants to retire. Why throw him at heavyweight? [It doesn’t] make any sense other than he just wants to do it so bad, I’ll just say yes.”
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From avenging losses to conquering new divisions, Pereira’s story has been one of relentless forward motion since his 2021 UFC debut. The 38-year-old has already become one of the fastest two-division champions in UFC history, a knockout artist whose aura feels equal parts mystical and inevitable.
Now, if Pereira gets his wish, the next chapter would be his boldest yet.
