Alex Pereira of Brazil punches Jiri Prochazka of the Czech Republic in the UFC light heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 295 event at Madison Square Garden on November 11, 2023, in New York City. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)



For the second time in a year, Alex Pereira has successfully defended his UFC title at Madison Square Garden in a déjà vu moment. He stopped Jared Prochazka in the second round of UFC 295 on Saturday night's main event by landing a hard left uppercut and then applying ground and pound. He also took home the light heavyweight title.

Israel Adesanya was stopped by Pereira in the last round of their middleweight championship match at UFC 281 back in 2022. But in a rematch with Adesanya at UFC 287 in Miami, he suffered a defeat and lost the light heavyweight title.

Even though Pereira didn't need to lose a lot of weight to compete in the light heavyweight class, he was still very powerful. Prochazka started the finishing move with his right hand, but Pereira stopped him with a left uppercut. He then went in for ground and pound, which caused referee Marc Goddard to step in and stop the fight.


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With his two UFC weight class titles, Pereira becomes the eighth fighter to follow in the footsteps of fighters like Randy Couture, BJ Penn, Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Georges St-Pierre, Amanda Nunes, and Henry Cejudo.

Throughout his career, Pereira—who was well-known for his tenacity—came up against strong opponents and fought mostly at a distance from them. After serving as Pereira's coach for a year, Glover Teixeira was defeated by him in the UFC 275 in 2022 to win the title.

Prochazka had not competed since suffering a shoulder injury a year prior, and UFC CEO Dana White was concerned about one of the worst injuries his doctors had ever seen. With no complaints regarding the outcome, Prochazka declared, "I was out." It was a depressing result for him after he had exerted great effort to recover. Pereira was in a good mood and kept most of the action under control until his uppercut ended, which was insufficient.


Attacking in a slugfest can be problematic, and he soon discovered that he was vulnerable to counterattacks, particularly in the heavyweight division where heavy-handed checkers are common.