Alex Pereira reveals broken foot after UFC 320 win, targets White House return. Alex Pereira confirmed that he suffered a fractured foot during his dominant victory at UFC 320, held at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Although Alex Pereira walked away from UFC 320 with the light heavyweight title in hand, he confirmed in post-fight remarks that the victory came with a fractured foot and fans may have to wait a considerable amount of time for his next fight. Despite that setback, “Poatan” is already casting ambitions toward a potential return fight on the UFC White House card.
“I did an X-Ray in Las Vegas and an MRI here and we have a fracture on my foot, but I still don’t know what will happen, or how long it will take for me to recover,” Pereira said at a Q&A in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, ahead of Saturday’s UFC Rio event. “I think it’s good to focus on this White House [date], it’s something that interests me. I think I’ll focus on this.” This is not the first time Pereira has fought through an injury. He has also mentioned a possible fight with Jon Jones, maybe at heavyweight, but said nothing is confirmed yet. “I don’t know who’s next,” Pereira said. “I’m focused on this fight.”
After knocking Ankalaev down in the fight, Pereira specifically targeted Ankalaev’s midsection with downward elbows en route to the first-round stoppage. If it wasn’t part of a specific strategy, it was certainly a technique Pereira enjoyed utilizing. “It was a great sensation,” Pereira said. “We train hard for that. We want to be in there and give our best, be the best. I landed a clean punch before the elbows and he came grabbing my legs. There was an opening and my elbow landed clean. When I landed the first one and saw blood, I started hitting and the referee stopped it. But I think it could have gone a little longer because I promised to slap his face and I couldn’t do that.”
In the aftermath of UFC 320, Ankalaev’s team claimed that the Russian had been nursing a rib injury heading into the fight, a statement Pereira dismissed. “I can’t know, but if it was already injured, it hurt it even more [with the elbows],” Pereira said. “You can’t give excuses. I had a thousand excuses to say, but waited to say when we were about to fight again. They’re already giving away [excuses] to maybe take away my merits, I don’t know.”
Injury or not, Alex Pereira remains a force that refuses to slow down. If his next fight really happens at the White House and possibly against Jon Jones, fans might be witnessing one of the biggest moments in UFC history.
