Alex Pereira recently silenced the calls of Artyom Vakhitov, who last defeated him in kickboxing.
In their first bout at Glory 77 in January 202, Pereira defeated Vahitov by split decision to win the light heavyweight title. Vahitov got his revenge in a rematch later that year, defeating Pereira by majority decision at Glory 78 to reclaim the title.
Pereira ended his kickboxing career the day before the bout by joining the Ultimate Fighting Championship, where “Poitan” became a two-division champion and won four title bouts in less than three years with the organization.
Meanwhile, Vahithov competed in one Muay Thai bout after his win over Pereira before switching to MMA where he is currently 2-1 and is excited about the possibility of facing Pereira in a three-fight series.
The Russian believes there is room for improvement in Pereira’s striking defense, which came in his only loss at UFC last year to Israel Adesanya, and Vakhitov says the opponent who knocked Pereira down was not only less skilled, but also mentally defeated before the bout even began.
“Mixed martial arts has always been interesting to me, and I’m very motivated by the possibility of a trilogy fight with Pereira happening. His biggest weakness is that he’s all attack and no defense,” Vakhitov told MMAFighting.com. “When you’re facing a skilled striker, you take a lot of punches to the head because you have no defense. We saw that in his second fight with Adesanya. He got caught out because he gives a lot of openings to an opponent who knows what he’s doing.”
“The reason other fighters couldn’t beat Alex is because their striking wasn’t high enough. They don’t have confidence in Alex and think he’s invincible, so in their minds they lose before the fight even starts. But I’ve beaten Alex before in a pure striking match, and I’m sure I can do it again if a trilogy fight at UFC happens.”
Pereira Issued a warning Pereira responded to Vakhitov’s comments with a statement on Instagram. The Brazilian claimed that his loss to Vakhitov was unfair as it meant he was leaving the promotion. Pereira then implied that the person who influenced Vakhitov’s recent comments had given “Poitan” similar advice, which he ignored. Pereira went on to advise the Russian to sign with manager Jorge Guimarães.
“Hey brother, be careful of the people who put this idea in your head,” Pereira said. “The same people who advised you did the same to me, but I’m not stupid so I didn’t do it. As we all know, I let you win because GLORY knew this would be my last fight for the organization and they didn’t want me to leave with the belt! For you to expose yourself like this, you must be a bit lost and you must not have a manager. That’s what I think. You should send a message to Jo In Ha.” [Jorge Guimaraes] I think he can help you. Chama.
