Alex Pereira says he is staying at heavyweight and wants an immediate rematch with Ciryl Gane, while also declaring he will refuse to fight in any future bout where Herb Dean is assigned as referee.
Pereira told fellow UFC fighter Renato Moicano that the decision to remain at heavyweight is definitive following his second-round knockout loss to Gane at UFC Freedom 250.
“100 percent staying at heavyweight. Honestly, training went really well. A lot of people talk about the weight, but I’ve always been a heavy guy. Some people say ‘Poatan wasn’t prepared, he can’t take a punch, he got dropped by a jab.’ How can people be so stupid and only see the jab? Nobody says, ‘Damn, he took a beating and stayed in the fight.’ Ciryl Gane was already a heavyweight, already used to that weight.”
Pereira disputed the notion that the jab that dropped him was a clean technical shot.
“That lucky punch — I’d call it a lucky punch, Gane closed his eyes when he threw the jab. But I’m definitely going after the belt. He has the belt now. I don’t know if Aspinall is coming back or when he’s coming back. It seems like he already said something about it.”
He also described his corner’s instruction between rounds and insisted he was not tired heading into the round that ended his night.
“I got back to the corner and listened clearly to Glover and Plinio. I didn’t even sit on the stool. I was relaxed. I was feeling good. You know why? Because my strategy wasn’t to expend a lot of energy or throw a lot of strikes. It was to use the first round to make my reads and then start picking up the pace.”
Pereira said he asked for a rematch backstage at the White House but received no clear answer from the UFC. Gane has already requested a title unification fight with undisputed champion Tom Aspinall on the UFC Paris card in September, which Aspinall has reportedly agreed to. Pereira said he suffered no concussion and is injury-free, hoping to return as soon as he is medically cleared.