LAS VEGAS -- Jorge Guimarães knew there was something truly off when former UFC middleweight and then-light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira actually complained about the way he was feeling ahead of his title defense against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 in March. Guimarães, Pereira's manager, has been with him for countless fights and knows it's not unusual -- common, in fact -- for Pereira to be dealing with some sort of injury going in. Injuries are normal, but Pereira making a fuss about them is not.
"He never complains, except when he's losing weight," Guimarães told ESPN this week. "The weight cut is the one exception, but other than that, this guy is bulletproof. Everyone knows that. The last one, though, he was complaining about how he felt."
Pereira (12-3) surrendered the light heavyweight championship to Ankalaev (21-1-1) by unanimous decision in an effort many observers saw as one of his worst in the UFC. The former two-weight champion in kickboxing and MMA will look to avenge that loss Saturday, when he meets Ankalaev in an immediate rematch at UFC 320 in Las Vegas (ESPN PPV, 10 p.m. ET). It will be the first time since 2023 that Pereira is the betting underdog (+210 by ESPN BET).
Shortly after Pereira's loss in March, UFC commentator Joe Rogan said he had heard "Poatan" went into the contest at less than 100%. In the time since, Pereira has acknowledged he was probably only "40%" of his normal self for that fight. According to his physical therapist, Kaue Yub, Pereira was dealing with, among other things, a stress fracture in his tibia. He also got sick while in Australia and was placed on antibiotics less than two weeks before the fight.
"When we were in Australia, I had told him, 'Hey, man, you're overtraining and your immunity is very low,'" Yub told ESPN through an interpreter. "And then, sure enough, he got very sick. He fought too many times. It was a serious lack of rest. Yeah, he fought too many times."
Even if Pereira had somehow found a way to defeat Ankalaev in their first meeting, his team agreed that he was likely headed for a loss at some point. The 38-year-old was crowned Fighter of the Year in 2024 after he appeared in three title defenses, including two on short notice. He headlined marquee cards at UFC 300 in April 2024 and UFC 303 less than two months later, despite a broken toe, and kept up a nonstop travel itinerary that extended into 2025, with appearances in Australia the month before his title fight against Ankalaev.
If any human was built for that level of activity, it's Pereira. He was well-conditioned for a rigorous combat sports schedule by his nine-year career in professional kickboxing, during which he averaged four fights a year to amass a 33-7 record. But Pereira is still human, despite some of his superhuman feats. His body was undeniably breaking down in March, when he dropped judges' scorecards of 49-46, 48-47 and 48-47 to Ankalaev. Although Pereira has made sure to publicly give full credit to Ankalaev for the result, there is no doubt Pereira and his team believe the injuries and his schedule caught up with him at UFC 313.
"As soon as I stepped out of the Octagon that night, I knew what I needed to correct," Pereira told ESPN through an interpreter. "Honestly, there's not much to change. I just needed to heal my body and take care of myself. ... I've always been nonstop. Since I was young, I've never been unemployed, I've always needed to stay active. It had a cumulative effect. A lot of things added up, and I started aging. Maybe these seven months between fights were the best thing I could have done."
In the immediate aftermath of the loss, Pereira finally took his necessary rest. He did visit his parents in Brazil, but his travel schedule slowed considerably. Yub accompanied him everywhere he went -- and, perhaps surprisingly, Yub didn't need to tell him to take it easy. After essentially two years of pushing aside any resistance from his body, Pereira gave himself time to heal.
"Alex is not the guy who does everything right," Yub said. "He has a different way of doing things, and it's not by the book. He doesn't take naps in the afternoon when we'd like him to. He doesn't do supplementation in his nutrition. He doesn't always eat as an athlete.
"But, in fact, after the last fight, I didn't need to talk much. He knew. When we started to work, everything was very gradual. The beginning was very complicated, because all of the injuries had been aggravated in his last fight. ... There was a lot of pain. He was not able to train. But in the last two months, his recovery was what we imagined."
Pereira put in an entire, uninterrupted camp in Danbury, Connecticut, where he trains with former UFC champion Glover Teixeira. His involvement in a movie shoot in Uruguay might have raised eyebrows in August, but his head coach, Plinio Cruz, said Pereira was there only a few days prior to the start of camp.
"I took him to Japan this year, because I was training a heavyweight there," Cruz said. "He went to Brazil and Uruguay, but that was all before camp. You're not seeing him on all of these trips, like it was with the last one. This is a different scenario that we're fighting in now. This time was slow. We stayed home and we stayed in the gym."
It's a bit cliché and, frankly, what one would expect a former champion's camp to say under the circumstances, but Pereira's loss in March may result in the best version of Pereira we've seen in years.
The idea of Pereira going into a fight injured stopped making Guimarães nervous a long time ago, because it's basically always the case. When asked to recall the last time Pereira went into a fight completely healthy, Guimarães couldn't provide an answer. The broken toe he overcame last year, which he suffered just two weeks prior to knocking out Jamahal Hill at UFC 300 and reinjured against Jiří Procházka at UFC 303, was just the latest example in a long career of injuries. When he fought former champion Jan Blachowicz in 2023, he secretly had a significant knee injury and dislocated rib.
But March? That was the first and only time Pereira had ever complained about his ailments. Cliché or not, that's got to mean something. And it's likely why Pereira and his team seem so confident going into UFC 320, despite the fact he's coming off a loss and facing the longest betting odds of his UFC career.
When asked at the UFC's Performance Institute on Monday if he knows something the world doesn't know going into this matchup, Cruz broke into a smile as he spoke.
"I feel very, very good about this one, bro."