Comparing the striking power of Glory champion Alex Pereira to ranked UFC fighters
A lot of MMA fans only know Alex Pereira as the guy who knocked out UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, and this is certainly driving those who actually follow kickboxing insane.
For the sake of Kris’ sanity, let’s take a closer look at Pereira’s recent run through Glory as he is set to challenge Glory light heavyweight champion Artem Vakhitov this weekend at Glory 77 in a title unification bout.
In his last nine Glory fights, Pereira has gone 8-1, picked up six stoppage victories, claimed the promotion’s middleweight title, won the interim light heavyweight championship and scored 11 knockdowns.
Of all those accomplishments, the 11 knockdowns might be the most impressive. Before comparing his knockdown ability to ranked UFC fighters, it is important to stipulate that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Obviously, kickboxing is not MMA. There is a long list of factors that differentiate the two such as: the definition of a knockdown is slightly different for the two sports, rounds in kickboxing are shorter, the gloves are different… I could really go on all day. However, in the spirit of 2021 jollification, let’s compare.
In his last nine fights, Pereira has landed 9.57 strikes per minute. This is a higher rate than the significant striking rate of any currently ranked UFC fighter. This is to be expected since he has had not to deal with those pesky takedowns and extended clinch situations. During the same stretch, he has scored 2.37 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time. This rate ranks ahead of all but three ranked UFC fighters. The three currently above that rate are Michael Chandler (one fight), Jiri Prochazka (one fight) and Sergei Pavlovich (heavyweight heaven).
Those 11 knockdowns have come in a little under 70 minutes of fight time. No ranked UFC fighter has been able to notch that many knockdowns in that little fight time.
During the nine-fight stretch, Pereira has landed 667 strikes and scored 11 knockdowns. Interestingly enough, his old kickboxing rival Adesanya is his nearest neighbor as he has landed 558 significant strikes and scored 11 knockdowns.
While Pereira has been dominant recently, he faces a tough challenge this weekend. Artem Vakhitov has not lost since dropping a split decision against Saulo Cavalari in 2015. In Glory, he has landed 10.30 strikes per minute, but he has also absorbed 10.96 for a -0.66 striking differential. He has never been knocked down in the promotion. That will certainly be put to the test against Pereira.
The Glory champion did recently re-sign with the kickboxing promotion. However, the deal allows him to take MMA fights for other promotions. Pereira did just that this past November. He needed a little under one round to stop Thomas Powell via walk-off knockout at LFA 95.
Pereira is still likely a ways off from a high profile opponent in MMA, and a caged rematch against Adesanya seems even more far fetched. For at least his LFA debut, the power translated from kickboxing to MMA.