Ray Longo isn’t sold on Alex Pereira as a heavyweight.
Pereira (13-4 MMA, 10-3 UFC) takes on Sergei Pavlovich (20-3 MMA, 9-3 UFC) in a five-round bout that co-headlines UFC 335 on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Paramount+).
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Pereira will look to rebound from his TKO loss to Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 in June. Pereira went off on referee Herb Dean for missing numerous shots to the back of his head, but Longo didn’t like what he saw from “Poatan” throughout the fight.
“I love Alex,” Longo said on the “Anik & Florian Podcast.” “I really love him as a fighter, but I think it maybe takes a little bit of an eye – forget the head. The illegal shots, they were horrible, but I saw nothing before that that lets me believe that he could beat him in a rematch. I just saw the size difference, the way he was moving. Alex now, it’s Bobby Green-esque. He’s got the power, but he keeps his hands down. When you get with these bigger guys now, can he take the power coming back is the problem because you even watch his sparring, it’s not like he’s a guy that doesn’t get hit.
“He likes to get hit and come back. These guys, I think, might be too big. They’re really, really big guys. I don’t know. We’ll see how he does with Sergei, but I think that’s going to be a tough fight, too, because the way his style is, I don’t think he can afford to get hit by these guys. At 185, big difference. 250, I don’t know. Ciryl Gane looked like a world beater in that fight before those head shots. I mean, I think he got knocked down with a jab, if I’m not mistaken, right? It wasn’t even like a power punch, but these guys are huge.”
Longo lauds Pereira’s persistence to win a third UFC belt but still has concerns with his ability to take punches at heavyweight.
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“God bless him, but I’ll tell you: These guys really, it’s a big difference,” Longo said. “That Ciryl Gane fight, I thought was going to go completely different. It didn’t go the way I saw it going, not in a good way for Alex.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Famed coach worries about Alex Pereira handling heavyweight power
