Ray Longo Thinks Alex Pereira Is Too Small for Heavyweight

Alex Pereira has built one of the scariest highlight reels in the sport — 11 of his 13 wins by knockout, with Israel Adesanya, Jiri Prochazka, Jan Blachowicz, Sean Strickland and Magomed Ankalaev all on the list. But Ray Longo watched Pereira's bid to become the UFC's first three-division champion end in a second-round TKO against Ciryl Gane at UFC White House in June, and the veteran coach came away with a blunt takeaway: heavyweight might simply be too big for him.

Longo laid it out on the Anik & Florian Podcast. He stressed he's a fan of Pereira as a fighter, but said he saw nothing before the illegal head shots that suggested Pereira could win a rematch. The size gap, the movement, the whole picture bothered him. Gane, now the undisputed champion after holding the interim belt twice, is 14-2 and was, in Longo's words, looking like a world beater before the fight ended.

The Style Problem

Here's Longo's core concern, and it's a fair one. He compared Pereira's defense to Bobby Green — enormous power, but hands low, a fighter who's willing to eat one to land one. That math works at 185 and 205. At 250, the incoming punches carry a different kind of freight. Longo pointed out Pereira got dropped by what looked like a jab, not even a power shot, and still couldn't recover his footing.

The sparring tells the same story, Longo argued. Pereira isn't a guy who avoids contact; he likes to get hit and fire back. Against fighters built like oak trees, that's a dangerous exchange rate. The coach's question was simple: can Pereira take the power coming back the other way?

What's Next

Pereira is already booked back into the deep end. Longo referenced a December meeting with Sergei Pavlovich — another concussive heavyweight who currently sits at No. 5 in the rankings — and flagged it as a brutal test for a fighter whose style leaves him exposed. A win there could line Pereira up for another title run, but Longo isn't convinced the stylistic problems vanish just because the names change.

None of this erases what Pereira has done. He's walked through plenty of danger at 185 and 205 and ended most of those nights as the last man standing. But the Gane fight didn't unfold the way Longo expected — and not in a way that flattered Pereira. The heavyweights, as he put it, are just a different kind of beast.