Making good on his light heavyweight divisional bow, former undisputed middleweight champion, Alex Pereira has landed at his new weight class with a victory — narrowly edging out fellow former gold holder, Jan Blachowicz in a close, split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) win in the co-main event of UFC 291.
Pereira, a former undisputed middleweight champion, managed to survive an early scare against Polish veteran, Blachowicz in the opening frame, seeing his back taken during a takedown scramble.
Forced to hand-fight with the former light heavyweight champion, Pereira managed to prevent a hellfire of rear-naked choke attempts, to see a second frame.
And narrowly edging the second and subsequent third rounds against Blachowicz, Pereira, who made his first light heavyweight walk in combat sports since his GLORY Kickboxing swansong back in 2021, managed to land a slew of low calf kicks to a much-labored, Blachowicz — lining himself up for a potential title fight in his planned sophomore light heavyweight outing.
Below, catch the highlights from Alex Pereira’s split decision win over Jan Blachowicz
3 rounds in the books!
Who won on your scorecards?
#UFC291 pic.twitter.com/ANJqp4mPVJ
— UFC (@ufc) July 30, 2023
