UFC light heavyweight Anthony Smith is not convinced by what he’s seen of former middleweight champ Alex “Poatan” Pereira. Smith recently appeared on The MMA Hour to discuss the light heavyweight title landscape, and argued that, although Pereira was once a two-division champ with GLORY kickboxing, he simply cannot hang with the best of the UFC’s 205-pounders.
“I think he can do well, for sure. He’s going to have a tough time with some of the top guys, just with his skill set. But just in pure striking matches, I think he can do well. I think Jan Blachowicz is a pretty tough matchup, if I’m being honest.
Anthony Smith: Alex Pereira Can’t Hang With Elite UFC Light Heavyweights
I think it’s a really tough matchup. Yeah, I do [think Pereira loses that].” Pereira is set to face former light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz at UFC 291, and a victory there would set “Poatan” on a road to challenge for Jamahal Hill’s title. Anthony Smith, however, is underwhelmed by Pereira’s skillset.
Smith specifically cited the reigning middleweight champ, Israel Adesanya, and his attempt to capture the light heavyweight title from Jan Blachowicz, as evidence.
“I think Jamahal Hill beats him too. It’s a matchup thing, though. It’s a matchup thing. There’s a lot of guys at light heavyweight that he’ll beat and could look really great doing it.
Jan Blachowicz is tough. Again, we’re talking about leg kicks here. Jan Blachowicz might be the best kick defender in the entire UFC, and I’ve been saying that for a long time. But if you go back and even watch the Adesanya fight, it all starts with the leg kicks.
Izzy’s game is very predicated on establishing his range and his striking with his leg kicks. Jan did a really good job of defending those and staying competitive in the striking, to get the takedowns later.
We’ve seen Alex Pereira hurt at a lower weight class several times by Adesanya, and I’m not saying Adesanya doesn’t hit hard, but he’s more of a pinpoint-accurate, well-timed striker. He’s not necessarily always the ‘punch through things’ kind of power, and Jan is.
He’s a great grappler, he’s got good takedowns. It’s just, there’s a lot of ways for Jan Blachowicz to make this difficult. And Jamahal Hill has got a really funky way of striking. He’s really hard to prepare for.
He’s got really good eyes. He’s hard to hit. He hinges at the waist differently. He defends kicks well enough and he’s not bad on the ground.
People don’t give him enough credit for his grappling. I think that he proved a lot of that in Glover Teixeira fight. I do think there’s a storyline there, though, for Jamahal and Alex, for sure — kind of get one back for his mentor, which I think would be cool. But I’m just not sure that he gets through Blachowicz.”
