Video: Alex Pereira and Sean Strickland train together ahead of pivotal fights

Alex Pereira welcomed Sean Strickland to Connecticut for a training team-up.

As he promised during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour, Pereira recently invited Strickland to work with him and Glover Teixeira in Danbury, Conn., and the former UFC middleweight champion shared footage of the experience on his YouTube channel.

Watch that video here:

This is an important camp for both Pereira and Strickland, who look to stay in the thick of their respective title hunts. Pereira moves up to 205 pounds to face former light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291 on July 29 and an impressive performance against Blachowicz could put Pereira in prime position to challenge for a second title. He briefly held the UFC’s middleweight belt after a stunning knockout of rival Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 (Adesanya avenged the loss in an immediate rematch five months later).

Pereira also joked on The MMA Hour that, “I’m going to learn English with Sean Strickland.” Strickland has a reputation for recklessly running his mouth in the cage and on social media.

In the clip above, there don’t appear to be any English lessons going on, but Pereira and coach Erick Tererê do show Strickland the finer points of power punching, while Strickland is also seen drilling wrestling techniques with the former two-division Glory kickboxing champion.

Up next for Strickland, he fights Abusupiyan Magomedov in the main event of UFC Vegas 76 on July 1. Though Strickland has fallen short in a few important bouts — including a knockout loss to Pereira at UFC 276 — he remains a dark horse to fight for middleweight gold as he has gone 6-2 since moving up from 170 pounds.