On paper, Alex Perez the fighter has seen better days. Almost certainly, he’d cop to that.
Starting with a flyweight title loss to ex-champ Deiveson Figueiredo a little more than five years ago, the 33-year-old has dropped five of six fights – including back-to-back stoppage setbacks.
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But Perez (25-10 MMA, 7-6 UFC) will try to right the ship with a quick turnaround when he takes on Charles Johnson (18-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) at UFC 324 next month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The event will be the promotion’s first in its new broadcast deal with Paramount+ after seven years on ESPN.
The matchup is of particular interest to Perez because he’s familiar with Johnson – who 17 months ago knocked out the new champion Joshua Van, for a $50,000 bonus.
“Charles is good. I’ve actually trained with him in the past. He came to Team Oyama (in California) and he beat the bricks off of me. But he’s a good guy, a good person,” Perez told MMA Junkie Radio.
“In this division, one or two good wins, one or two good finishes puts you right in the spot. Charles is getting to be where I was – I moved up in the rankings, I fought for the title, I’ve been up in the top 10 for a long time. Now I’m down a little bit lower in the rankings, and he’s gunning for my spot.”
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Johnson’s been where Perez is now – mired in a rough stretch with four losses in six fights at one point. But his win over Van was part of his current resurgence in a 5-1 run that includes three post-fight bonuses.
In August, Johnson took out Lone’er Kavanagh as one of four betting upsets in his current run. Perez suspects Johnson has the resume to bring a fun fight out of the gate on the UFC’s new broadcast partner.
“I’m coming off a loss to Asu Almabayev, so I’m looking to bounce back,” Perez said. “It’s going to be a good fight regardless – both of us don’t really like to wrestle much. We like to stand and bang. Go out there and get a couple good finishes, you’re right in the title hunt again – two, three fights you could be fighting right there (for title contention).”
Van just pulled off an upset of Alexandre Pantoja to win the flyweight title at UFC 323 – thanks to a Pantoja injury on a takedown just 26 seconds into the fight. Pantoja almost certainly will get a title shot once he’s healed, but the division is likely to stay moving in the meantime.
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That’s something that always seems to have been the case at flyweight, which Perez is thankful for – even when it means he has to fight down in the rankings, like he’ll do against Johnson. Perez currently sits at No. 11 on the UFC’s official 125-pound list. Johnson is two steps down at No. 13.
“It’s hard because ’25ers – there’s not a lot of us,” Perez said. “I honestly think the rankings kind of messed everything up. Everyone wants to move up in the rankings, so if you take on lower fighters underneath you – not many people (want to do that). … Our division is kind of weird because you see a lot of higher-ranked guys taking those lower-ranked fights. But our division keeps moving.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Alex Perez hopes UFC 324 starts path back to flyweight contention
