Dana White not enthusiastic about Alex Pereira’s desired move to heavyweight

Alex Pereira.

UFC president Dana White has to admire the ambitiousness of his light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira (10-2).

However, that doesn’t mean White condones the 36-year-old Brazilian’s latest aspiration to move up a weight class and fight at heavyweight at UFC 301 on May 4 in Rio de Janeiro, just three weeks after his first-round knockout win over Jamahal Hill at UFC 300.

“When you think about him moving up to heavyweight — you’ve got (heavyweight champion Jon) Jones, you’ve got (interim champion Tom) Aspinall and the list goes on and on in that heavyweight division,” White said, via MMA Junkie.

“[The] heavyweight division is nasty. I don’t know if that’s the right move for him. He looked damn good tonight in the division he’s in, so I think he might want to stick around there for a minute. But I don’t know. These are all things that we’ll talk about.”

If Pereira does compete at heavyweight, it would be his third different UFC weight class in the last two years. He won the UFC middleweight championship in November 2022 and the light heavyweight championship in November 2023.

And while’s Pereira’s resume does have some impressive wins — most notably four victories over former champions (Hill, Israel Adesanya, Jiri Prochazka and Sean Strickland) — moving to heavyweight, where fighters range from 205 pounds to 265 pounds, is a much different challenge in itself.

After Pereira’s remarks, Aspinall seemed to volunteer to welcome the former Glory kickboxing champion to the division, making an ominous post on Instagram of himself staring at the 205-pound champion.

An intriguing matchup, Pereira declined to go on record with who he would want to face in his heavyweight debut.

“When I said I want to fight at heavyweight, I’m not going to give names right here,” Pereira said during his post-fight news conference. “I told them I want to fight at heavyweight, so whoever they choose.”

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