Alex Pereira continues to buzz the combat sports world, as GLORY’s middleweight and interim light-heavyweight champ scored yet another, must-see knockout on Saturday.

Pereira devastates Ertugrul Bayrak

As you can see by watching the clip below, Pereira defended his middleweight crown by ending Bayrak with a vicious, vicious left hook. Wit the win, Pereira extended his winning streak to eight and his kickboxing record now stands at 41-6. The Brazilian fighter has scored three straight knockouts as well (you can see one of those here).

Pereira’s planning return to MMA

The feared striker has also competed in MMA in the past, as Pereira went 2-1 in MMA fights back in 2015 and 2016. Recently, however, Pereira announced he plans to make another run in the sport. While talking to MMA Junkie before GLORY 74, Pereira said this:

“I train all the disciplines every day,” Pereira said. “You never know about the future. I’m not the boss. I’m the employee. GLORY, I don’t know what they want. Maybe they’re going to come tomorrow and say, ‘We don’t need you anymore.’ I’m ready for anywhere, anytime, any fighting style – that includes MMA, too.

“GLORY is doing a great job right now. I’m really happy with the organization and with the contract I have, which runs through 2021. But also, in this contract, I’m allowed to fight two MMA fights per year, even being under the GLORY banner, so the doors are not closed for the future. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow. It’s just got to make sense.”

It will be really interesting to see which MMA promotion those fights take place with. Historically, the UFC hasn’t let athletes compete in other sports (aside from Conor McGregor’s 2017 boxing match with Floyd Mayweather, but the UFC made a truckload of money from that bout). So, it would be kind of surprising if Pereira signed with the UFC.

That said, Pereira holds two wins over current UFC middleweight champ, Israel Adesanya, and one of those victories was by knockout. So, could the UFC make an exception here? You would think organization’s like Bellator and RIZIN would be more than happy to bring Pereira on board.

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