LFA is excited to announce that we have
signed top prospect
#AlexPereira.Pereira is the reigning
#GLORY 85 kg champ and interim 95 kg champ.He is also the last man to defeat @StyleBender
and holds a 2-0 record against the #UFC
#middleweight champ in
#kickboxing. pic.twitter.com/aqOz7x0uLS
— LFA (@LFAfighting)
October 23, 2020
Editor’s note: The article has been updated at 4:40 p.m. ET on
Oct. 23 to add comments from Pereira and his manager.
Shortly after a fake Twitter account masqueraded and made waves as
Glory kickboxing champ Alexsandro
Pereira, the fighter has signed with the Legacy Fighting Alliance.
On Thursday night, the promotion announced it had signed highly
touted kickboxer Pereira (2-1 MMA, 41-6 KB). The kickboxer had
once signed to participate on Dana White’s Contender Series in 2018, but a
prospective matchup was scratched before it came together. Pereira
does not yet have an opponent listed, or any date specified for his
organizational debut. It is expected that “Poatan” will compete at
the middleweight division that he lorded over in Glory.
Pereira spoke to Sherdog about the signing, saying, “I signed a
contract to make two fights per year. But I’ll keep fighting in
Glory.” Pereira’s manager, Jorge Guimaraes, also spoke of Pereira’s
new deal. “He helped Anderson [Silva] and Glover [Teixeira] in
their last camps and both got really impressed about how adapted to
MMA ‘Poatan’ is,” Guimaraes explained. “Once we [had] a great
relationship with Glory, they allowed ‘Poatan’ to make two fights
in LFA per year. He will fight in LFA defending the Glory
flag.”
Although “Poatan” posts just two wins in MMA, both came by knockout
within the first two rounds. His debut in the sport coming in 2015,
the kickboxer succumbed to a rear-naked choke in the third round
against Quemuel
Ottoni. As a kickboxer, Pereira is much more decorated, as he
is currently the middleweight champion and the interim middleweight
titleholder in Glory. With 41 wins under his belt including 30 by
knockout, one of his most prominent came when he sparked Israel
Adesanya with a vicious left hook at
a Glory of Heroes event in 2017. That meeting was a rematch
against Adesanya from the prior year, as Pereira captured a
unanimous verdict over the current UFC middleweight champ in 2016.
Pereira has won eight consecutive kickboxing matches, including a
stretch of title victories with Glory where he knocked out five of
seven foes.
The kickboxing organization where Pereira is the champ has encountered
several financial woes, leading Glory to go on hiatus due to
the coronavirus pandemic. It does not appear that Pereira will be
forced to vacate either belt, and the promotion has confirmed to
Sherdog that he will be permitted to take kickboxing matches while
under contract with the LFA.
Pereira
made the news in September when he tested positive for COVID-19
while training with Glover
Teixeira. As both he and Teixeira contracted the virus, the two
training partners quarantined together
and continued to train as they were both asymptomatic. Teixeira
will finally be meeting Thiago
Santos at UFC on ESPN 17 on Nov. 7 after COVID-19 pushed the
matchup back a few months.