Alex Pereira has spoken out against Jiri Prochazka regarding allegations of witchcraft following their UFC 303 title fight.
With Conor McGregor out of the main event against Michael Chandler due to a toe injury, Pereira faced Prochazka 11 days ago at UFC 303 for the light heavyweight title. Before the fight, Prochazka accused Pereira of using shamanic rituals and spiritual aids to win the bout.
“Poatan,” who showed off his indigenous war paint during the face-off, didn’t explicitly deny the allegations, saying “everyone has their own soul.” But the Brazilian, who represents the Pataxo tribe, promised there would be no magic in his title fight with Prochaska. Pereira nearly turned off Prochaska’s lights at the end of the first round, but put him to sleep with a head kick and follow-up punches at the start of the second.
Pereira’s longtime coach, Plinio Cruz, is adamant that despite the war paint and tribal dancing, “Poatan” is a man of God and has never practiced witchcraft in his life. Cruz believes Prochaska was intoxicated by spiritual stories, which worked to their advantage in the bout.
“his [Prochazka’s] “Alex has an Indigenous background and he loves to honor his parents and I really respect that he’s honoring his people’s culture and I help him do that and I’m a big supporter of that. But Alex is a man of God. Whatever you call God, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah… there is only one sun and Alex is a man of God. I think Jiri somehow let this Indigenous stuff, this witchcraft, whatever it is, get into his head, but it worked in our favor,” Cruz said.
Cruz also revealed that Pereira told Prochaska the same thing when the teams met at the airport.
“We like him, we like his team. He’s a gentleman,” Cruz said. “He’s a true warrior, he lives by the code of the samurai. Spiritually, he’s crazy. Alex isn’t the type to send messages, he’s the type to say whatever he feels. That’s why we came to him.” [Prochazka] And he [Pereira] I’m like, “Hey, I respect you. I wish you the best of luck.” And I mean it with all my heart, and he’s like, “Hey, I just want you to know that I’ve never dabbled in witchcraft in my life. I don’t care about my Native American family or whatever, I’m a man of God just like you, so don’t get me wrong.”
