Anthony Smith: Alex Pereira ‘going to have a tough time’ with some top UFC light heavyweights

Can Alex Pereira pull off the improbable all over again?

After dropping the UFC middleweight title to Israel Adesanya this past April, “Poatan” is set to move up to 205 pounds to pursue a second UFC belt to add to his trophy case. That hunt begins on July 29 when Pereira faces former champion Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291.

Pereira was already a two-division champ in his past life at GLORY Kickboxing, but longtime light heavyweight contender Anthony Smith has doubts if history can repeat itself in MMA.

“I think he can do well, for sure,” Smith said recently on The MMA Hour. “He’s going to have a tough time with some of the top guys, just with his skill set. But just in pure striking matches, I think he can do well. I think Jan Blachowicz is a pretty tough matchup, if I’m being honest. I think it’s a really tough matchup. Yeah, I do [think Pereira loses that].”

Pereira, 35, captured simultaneous titles at both 85 kilograms (187.4 pounds) and 95 kilograms (209.4 pounds) in GLORY before making the full-time move to pursue MMA in 2021. He immediately found success, racking up four consecutive wins under the UFC umbrella, including a stunning fifth-round knockout of Adesanya this past November to capture the UFC middleweight belt and become MMA Fighting’s 2022 Fighter of the Year.

But Pereira’s brutal knockout loss to Adesanya in the pair’s MMA rematch ultimately ended that magical run. Now the fearsome 6-foot-4 striker is eyeing a similar championship run at light heavyweight, however that’s no easy feat. The 20-pound gap between middleweight and light heavyweight is the largest between any of the UFC’s divisions, and no fighter in history has won UFC titles in both categories. Even Adesanya failed in his attempt in March 2021 when he lost a unanimous decision to then-champ Blachowicz at UFC 259.

Pereira will enter into title contention if he gets past Blachowicz, but Smith believes the elite of the division — headlined by current champ Jamahal Hill and former champ Jiri Prochazka — still present plenty of problems for the former middleweight belt-holder.

“I think Jamahal Hill beats him too,” Smith said. “It’s a matchup thing, though. It’s a matchup thing. There’s a lot of guys at light heavyweight that he’ll beat and could look really great doing it. Jan Blachowicz is tough. Again, we’re talking about leg kicks here — Jan Blachowicz might be the best kick defender in the entire UFC, and I’ve been saying that for a long time. But if you go back and even watch the Adesanya fight, it all starts with the leg kicks. Izzy’s game is very predicated on establishing his range and his striking with his leg kicks. Jan did a really good job of defending those and staying competitive in the striking, to get the takedowns later.

“Luke Rockhold is very much the same way, his whole game is dictated on being able to land big kicks. Jan Blachowicz was able to kind of stop that, defend the takedowns, and then get a nasty knockout. He’s got crazy power in his hands. We’ve seen Alex Pereira hurt at a lower weight class several times by Adesanya, and I’m not saying Adesanya doesn’t hit hard, but he’s more of a pinpoint-accurate, well-timed striker. He’s not necessarily always the ‘punch through things’ kind of power, and Jan is. He’s a great grappler, he’s got good takedowns. It’s just, there’s a lot of ways for Jan Blachowicz to make this difficult.

“And Jamahal Hill has got a really funky way of striking. He’s really hard to prepare for. He’s got really good eyes. He’s hard to hit. He hinges at the waist differently. He defends kicks well enough and he’s not bad on the ground. People don’t give him enough credit for his grappling. I think that he proved a lot of that in Glover Teixeira fight. I do think there’s a storyline there, though, for Jamahal and Alex, for sure — kind of get one back for his mentor, which I think would be cool. But I’m just not sure that he gets through Blachowicz.”