Alex Pereira continues his successful run in the UFC.
The former Glory kickboxing champion picked up his second win under the UFC banner outpointing Bruno Silva in a hard-fought battle to open up the main card for Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 203. Pereira (5-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) defeated Silva (22-7 MMA, 3-1 UFC) via a unanimous decision that read 30-27 across all judges’ scorecards.
Alex Pereira & Bruno Silva just left it all in the Octagon 🤜🤛 #UFCVegas50 pic.twitter.com/OJVEyagbos
— UFC (@ufc) March 13, 2022
It was an evenly matched contest from start to finish.
To many’s surprise, Silva was not too overwhelmed on the feet against Pereira. In the opening round, they traded shots and both landed and connected flush. Silva would occasionally look for the takedown and was able to get one towards the end of the first round. Pereira would get up with just a few seconds remaining and land the more significant combination of the round.
The second was very similar with Silva stepping up even more on the feet, as his confidence grew. Pereira would make sure to keep Silva honest, also landing combinations of his own. It was a closely contested round.
The final five minutes of the fight were perhaps the more decisive round. Silva had a good start, but half way through the round he was hit hard by Pereira and wobbled. Pereira would go on to cause further damage, but was unable to finish Silva, as his opponent did a great job at staying in the fight.
The 34-year-old is now on a five-fight winning streak since losing his professional MMA debut back in 2015. The current streak includes two wins under the UFC lights. He defeated Silva and prior to that he stopped Andreas Michailidis with a flying knee in late 2021.
Pereira is the only man to have knocked out UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. He holds kickboxing wins over Adesanya having outpointed him in a decision in 2016 and then knocked him out just a year later in 2017. The Brazilian has four consecutive wins. His only loss came in his MMA debut back in 2015.
Up-to-the-minute UFC Fight Night 203 results includes:
- Alex Pereira def. Bruno Silva via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Matthew Semelsberger def. A.J. Fletcher via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- JJ Aldrich def. Gillian Robertson via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Javid Basharat def. Trevin Jones via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
- Damon Jackson def. Kamuela Kirk via submission (arm triangle) – Round 2, 4:42
- Miranda Maverick def. Sabina Mazo via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 2:15
- Cody Brundage def. Dalcha Lungiambula via submission (guillotine choke) – Round 1, 3:41
- Guido Cannetti def. Kris Moutinho via TKO (punches) – Round 1, 2:07
- Azamat Murzakanov def. Tafon Nchukwi via TKO (flying knee) – Round 3, 0:44
