Can he do it?! Alex Pereira has three months to cut 47 pounds

Alex Pereira will take on Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title at UFC 281. | Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

Alex Pereira currently weighs a whopping 232 pounds. UFC middleweight Alex Pereira has gained a whop…


UFC 276: Strickland v Pereira
Alex Pereira will take on Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title at UFC 281. | Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

Alex Pereira currently weighs a whopping 232 pounds.

UFC middleweight Alex Pereira has gained a whopping 47 pounds since his first-round knockout victory against Sean Strickland at UFC 276, hitting the scales at 232.8 pounds just three months out from his highly anticipated grudge match with Israel Adesanya.

The former two-division GLORY champion, who is 2-0 over Adesanya in kickboxing, hasn’t started his UFC 281 training camp yet but revealed that he has a lot of weight to cut — 47 pounds, to be exact — between now and Nov. 12.

Pereira is 3-0 in the UFC since making his promotional debut in 2021 and is highly touted as one of the best strikers in MMA and perhaps the only man at middleweight capable of beating Adesanya, the division’s long-reigning champion.

He knocked out Adesanya under the GLORY banner in 2017 with the same vicious left hook he used to finish Strickland last month, setting up a trilogy bout with ‘The Last Stylebender’ in MMA. That trilogy fight will headline the upcoming UFC 281 card on Nov. 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York.