Former UFC middleweight champion and current light-heavyweight kingpin Alex Pereira has revealed that he wants to drop back down to 185lbs to challenge Dricus du Plessis for the belt he once held.
“Coming down to 185 one more time,” Pereira wrote on Instagram alongside a picture of himself with du Plessis celebrating his successful title defense over Israel Adesanya on the TV screen behind him.
DDP has since responded, and appears to be open to the superfight, though he warns Pereira that it wouldn’t be a good idea, reminding him that he was KO’d by Adesanya in his last appearance at middleweight.
“I honestly don’t think Alex Pereira should drop down to 185lbs,” Du Plessis said at the post-fight presser after hearing of Pereira’s post. “If he wants to, great, perfect, but then we’re going to get the excuses. We saw Izzy stiff that man in the first [second] round.
“I felt Izzy’s punching power tonight. You know, Izzy has great timing. He’s fast, he’s long, and he has great combinations, but I felt the power. If Izzy stiffens you like that, you do not want to be in there with me.
“Especially when you’re going to come in there with excuses like I cut too much weight, everyone is going to say that.”
Meanwhile, du Plessis’ coach Morne Visser has said that he’d welcome that particular match-up, but added an extra twist by stating that the roles should be reversed, with DDP moving up to challenge Pereira for his belt instead.
“No – I won’t give him the joy to go down to 185,” Visser told Submission Radio. “We’ll just go up… He doesn’t want to beat him [at 185 because] he’ll say that we’ve gone down, he was fatigued and whatever so no, we’ll go up [instead].
“I’m sure that the UFC will be okay with it, if that’s what he’s said, [and] I know Dricus is game, so we’ll go up – we won’t wait for him to come down. He’s fighting in October, so I really hope that the UFC gives us this blessing for December.”
