UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira might be returning at UFC 312 to face an as-yet-announced fighter. However, he could also be cornering Sean Strickland in his attempt to regain the UFC middleweight championship against Dricus du Plessis in what we expect to be the main event.
Could Pereira also be in action in some other way? We don’t know for sure, but Pereira dropped this short video and tease on social media on Monday that has sparked speculation.
In addition to DDP-Strickland, the Sydney, Australia card has a second title fight, with UFC women’s strawweight champion Weili Zhang defending her title against Tatiana Suarez.
Adding a third championship fight would make UFC 312 the ninth event in the promotion’s history to feature three title fights. The last one was UFC 261 in 2021. If you include UFC 300—which had two world championships and the BMF title fight—it would be the tenth.
Pereira has become such a massive star in the sport, and adding him against No. 1 contender Magomed Ankalaev would be huge. However, Pereira recently stated he wasn’t fighting Ankalaev in his next fight.
Could he be moving up to heavyweight to face Tom Aspinall for the interim heavyweight title, with the winner getting Jon Jones later in the year? That seems like a long shot. Here’s an even longer shot that would turn the combat sports world on its ear: Pereira vs. Jake Paul in a boxing match.
Hear me out.
UFC President Dana White said he was working on something “no one would see coming” during the post-event presser on December 14 in Tampa. That announcement has sparked mounds of speculation.
With talk of Conor McGregor vs. Logan Paul in a boxing match floating around, who knows what White was referring to? Paul called Pereira out multiple times for a boxing match, and Pereira actually answered Paul’s FaceTime in the ring in July.
Could that be why Pereira told fans he wasn’t fighting Ankalaev? Was this also what Pereira was referring to when he teased a big announcement following a meeting in Las Vegas earlier this month?
We should find out the truth soon, as the light heavyweight champion is giving us plenty to think about heading into the New Year.
If Pereira fights Ankalaev, all is normal and expected in the UFC. If Pereira wins, there’s a good chance he moves up to heavyweight for his next fight. If he moves up to heavyweight to face Aspinall, it’ll be interesting to see if he ever competes at light heavyweight again.
If he is taking a boxing match with Paul, especially as a part of UFC 312, it could become the highest-selling pay-per-view in combat sports history. While there are some obvious hooks for this concept, it still sounds too far-fetched to be true.
Then again, Paul vs. Mike Tyson once sounded unrealistic.
