The UFC is returning to Salt Lake City on October 5th with the light heavyweight title on the line. Alex Pereira (11-2) will look to defend his light heavyweight title successfully for a third time as he takes on the very dangerous Khalil Rountree (13-5).
While Pereira is fully focused on this matchup and focused on defending his title, that hasn’t stopped him from vocalizing his future aspirations. Those aspirations including dropping down in weight once more to try and win back the middleweight championship.
Last month in the main event of UFC 305, Dricus Du Plessis (22-2) defended his middleweight title against Israel Adesanya (24-4) in Australia. After a very fun back-and-forth fight, DDP submitted Adesanya in the fourth round to keep his middleweight championship. This immediately caught the attention of the light heavyweight champion.
UFC Champion vs UFC Champion
Since the DDP victory, Pereira has made it clear that he wants to return to middleweight one final time to try and regain the UFC middleweight title. A title that Pereira originally won from Israel Adesanya back in 2022 before losing the belt back to Adesanya last year. That loss led to Pereira’s move up to 205.
After his win at UFC 305, Dricus Du Plessis indicated that he would love to fight Pereira, but he’d like to move up to 205 to make the superfight happen. Now, both men have fights standing in front of this potential superfight. Pereira has the fight next month against Rountree and DDP will have a rematch with former champ Sean Strickland (29-6).
Du Plessis and Strickland fought to a razor close split decision in January where many thought Strickland won. My guess is their rematch will be another close fight. However, if Pereira wins at UFC 307 and should DDP beat Strickland again, the fight to make is definitely Pereira – Du Plessis. It’ll just be a matter of which title will be on the line.