Michael Bisping also doesn’t think Alex Pereira should be cornering Sean Strickland at UFC 312.
Light heavyweight champion Pereira will corner Strickland (29-6 MMA, 16-6 UFC) for his title-fight rematch against middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis (22-2 MMA, 8-0 UFC), which headlines Saturday’s card at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN2, ESPN+).
With Pereira a month out from his title defense against Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC 313 main event on March 8, Bisping agrees with Cormier that cornering Strickland will serve as a big distraction.
“DC thinks it’s a bad idea. I’ve got a theory on why he’s saying that,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “The reality is, for Alex Pereira, flying to the other side of the world a few weeks before his title fight against Magomed Ankalaev, that a lot of people think is the toughest matchup for him at 205, and I’ll probably agree with that, as well. They think it’s a bad idea. Daniel Cormier said once you go to Australia, you got to deal with jet lag, different food.
“The training regimen won’t be the same, and all the rest of it. They are all valid points, and by the way, the whole time Pereira is doing that, Magomed Ankalaev is working his ass off. Because if Pereira beats him, he becomes a legend himself, and every single time he’s standing there with Sean Strickland and doing all that type of stuff, Pereira is not advancing his game, he’s not defending takedowns and all the rest of it. So what is going on?”
Strickland joined forces with Pereira after being knocked out by him in their middleweight bout at UFC 276 in July 2022.
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 312.
