Alex Pereira’s Manager: The winner of Alex Pereira vs. Sean Strickland will receive the next Middleweight title shot

The UFC Middleweight champion Israel Adesanya will be defending his title at UFC 276, but will have to keep eyes in the back of his head after the news that was shared by a former opponent’s manager.

Longtime MMA manager Jorge Guimarães, the agent for kickboxing star Alex Pereira, said that it’s been agreed that the winner of Pereira vs. Sean Strickland will received a shot at whoever is victorious in Adesanya versus Cannonier.

“It’s already agreed, the decision has been made,” Guimarães said. “Whoever wins the fight between Sean Strickland and Alex will face the winner of Jared Cannonier and ‘Izzy,’ Israel Adesanya. It’s a deal. It was hard at first, as incredible as it sounds,” to find opponent for Pereira in the UFC, “because many people didn’t want to fight [him].

There were like 12 fighters turning down fights,” he said. “And fights there would be interesting. Big names, too. It reached a point that I had to go talk to the boss. But when you get to the top of the pyramid, people are forced to accept a fight. It’s super interesting for Sean Strickland. He’s very tough, fun, brave, and I think it’s going to be a great fight. Both [match-ups] on the same night, it starts to build something already.”

Pereira prior to transitioning to MMA was a 2-division GLORY champion with 2 wins over Adesanya during their kickboxing days. Since making the move in 2015, Pereira lost his debut before stacking a 3-win streak prior to signing with the UFC and adding 2 more wins to his record against Andreas Michailidis and Bruno Silva.

Sean Strickland on the other hand has been proving himself in the octagon since moving back up to Middleweight, recent wins against Uriah Hall and Jack Hermansson have led Strickland to this #1 contender bout for UFC 276 where he looks to gain his first UFC title bout vs. Adesanya or Cannonier.

UFC 276 is scheduled to go down on July 2nd during the UFC’s 10th annual International Fight Week, the main event is a Middleweight championship bout between Adesanya vs. Cannonier. The co-main is a trilogy between the Featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski vs Max Holloway, we are also expected to see Miesha Tate vs Lauren Murphy, Sean O’Malley vs Pedro Munhoz and much more.

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