This past weekend at UFC 255, Alex Perez (24-6) got his shot at the flyweight championship when he took on Deiveson Figueiredo (20-1). Perez started the contest off pretty well landing some decent shots.
He then shot in for a takedown on the UFC flyweight champion. Perez was deep on a single leg, but Figueiredo rolled to a leglock to get out of the position. Once Perez was out of the leglock, he followed Figueiredo to the ground.
However, Figueiredo did an incredible job of transitioning to a guillotine choke as soon as they hit the mat. Perez almost appeared out of the choke, but the UFC champion synched it up even tighter and Perez was forced to tap just two minutes into the fight.
It was an incredibly disappointing fight for the Dana White Contender Series veteran. Perez was the first fighter from the contender series to appear in a UFC title fight. However, it ended very quickly and with great disappointment.
After UFC 255, Perez will be forced to go back to the drawing board. The fortunate thing for him is that he really didn’t take any damage in the fight. Because he was submitted and didn’t really get hit, he should be able to turn around quickly.
What’s next after UFC 255?
In looking at the UFC’s flyweight rankings, there are a few good options out there for Alex Perez. One of the options that jumps out to me would be a fight with Askar Askarov (12-0-1) who is actually ranked ahead of Perez.
Askarov is coming off of a victory back on Fight Island over Alexandre Pantoja. The flyweight contender from Dagestan could honestly be one of the next in line for the title, however, there’s a bit of a log jam in the UFC‘s flyweight division.
We already know that Brandon Moreno will be getting the next title shot at UFC 256. Following that fight, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Cody Garbrandt fight the winner seeing as Garbrandt was originally supposed to fight Figueiredo at UFC 255.
With that, Askarov needs an opponent. Both him and Perez currently rank inside the top five so the matchup makes sense to me. Either way, I would expect a pretty quick turnaround for Perez given the way that the fight went on Saturday.