Michel
Pereira won’t get to fight at UFC 283 in Rio de Janeiro like he
had hoped, but he did receive an intriguing matchup as a
consolation prize.
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Pereira, who has won five straight in UFC competition and recently
entered the promotion’s welterweight rankings, will face Sean Brady
at UFC
on ESPN 43 in San Antonio, Texas, on March 25.
“I thought that my hard time finding opponents was due to the
fact that I was out of the rankings, but that was a huge mistake,”
Pereira told Sherdog.com in a video interview. [UFC matchmaker
Sean] Shelby did everything he could to find me someone to face at
UFC Rio, but nobody wanted to fight me. I was really mad until the
UFC came with the name of Sean Brady, and it looks like we will
fight on March 25.”
Currently on vacation at a Brazilian friend’s home in Kansas,
Pereira said that he doesn’t yet have much information on his
opponent.
“All I know is that he is a wrestler. I saw his fight with Belal
[Muhammad], but I don’t know much about him,” Pereira said. “I took
a week off to visit my friend here in freezing Kanas. By the
way, I’ve never been to a colder place in my whole life. I’ll
start my camp 100% after New Year’s Eve.”
Pereira also revealed that he will hold his upcoming camp at Xtreme
Couture in Las Vegas.
“I always said that I don’t like to train with big teams,
but those guys changed my opinion,” he said.
In addition to having great training partners, Pereira was very
complimentary of the coaches on his new team.
“Everybody is always focused on helping each other. It’s been a
great experience for me,” he said.
Pereira shared a humorous-but-harrowing experience that occurred
during one of his first sparring sessions at Xtreme Couture.
“In one of the first sparrings I did there, the coach told
everybody to pair up. Since I was just arriving and didn’t know
anybody, everybody was already paired up,” Pereira said. “I looked
on both sides and there was only one partner left: Francis
Ngannou. Oh my God. It looked like I was grappling with a
refrigerator. The guy threw me to one side and another like I was a
toy. I got a stiff neck for one week.”
Pereira has also trained extensively with UFC middleweight Sean
Strickland as well as numerous Russian fighters at the gym. The
latter has proven to be a challenging yet valuable experience.
“Those Russians are like ticks,” he said. “When they grab you, it’s
impossible to release, but they are helping me a lot to improve my
wrestling defense. One guy I love to train with is Strickland. Our
striking training is nuts. He is such a nice guy.”
Pereira also weighed in on Khamzat
Chimaev’s claim that he is
struggling to find an opponent for his next UFC appearance.
“This guy just wants easy fights,” Pereira said. “He knows
[Paulo
Costa and Robert
Whittaker] are problems for him. That’s why he didn’t want to
face them. But I already said that I would love to face him, Colby
[Covington], [Nate] Diaz or [Jorge] Masvidal. By the way, I hope
that after I beat Brady and get a place above Masvidal in the
rankings, he finally agrees to face me. After all, we have some
personal unfinished business to solve.”