UFC 303: Can Anyone Stop Poatan? Alex Pereira Continues Path of ...

Let's face it. Things didn't look good for the UFC.

It's not ideal when a pay-per-view main event crumbles after the posters have been hung and the billboards positioned. It's worse when the bout is planned to headline the promotion's annual International Fight Week show in Las Vegas.

It's cataclysmic when the main event is built around Conor McGregor.

After all, the "Notorious" former double-champ has had a long and profitable, if not always successful, run as the company's most recognizable superstar.

Still, somehow, UFC 303 survived.

And who'd have thought? It may have exceeded the original.

After rescuing the show from the fieriest of burning buildings, snatching it from the most tightly clenched jaws of defeat...or, well, whatever cliche a never-lost-for-words Dana White might care to invoke...he may have done something of far greater substance, too.

He found himself a new supernova.

His name is Alex Pereira. And after just nine fights with the company following a decorated run as a kickboxer, he seems destined to accomplish things McGregor never neared.

And he's managed to do it, so far at least, with precisely none of the outside issues that have become a main narrative of the iconic Irishman's recent history.

Now 36, Pereira became a UFC champion just one year and six days after his company debut, unseating a fighter in Israel Adesanya who not only held a belt at 185 pounds but was at or very near the top of any reputable pound-for-pound compilation.

He dropped the belt back to Adesanya five months later before immediately announcing a climb to light heavyweight, where he defeated former champ Jan Blachowicz three months after the Adesanya loss and was slotted for a title shot against Jiří Procházka.

Procházka was dispatched in two rounds as the Brazilian matched McGregor's champ/champ status, but "Poatan" hasn't stopped there. He blew away Jamahal Hill in a single round at UFC 300 in April, then was abruptly plucked out of preparation for a defense later this year to headline Saturday's show in McGregor's absence.

How did that go? Go ahead and ask some people who know what they're looking at.

"He's the biggest superstar in MMA today. On a level we haven't seen since Conor McGregor," blow-by-blow man Jon Anik said after Pereira KO'd Procházka, again in two rounds but this time with a vicious, viral head kick. "It is Poatan's world in the UFC in 2024."

It's high-end gushing, to be sure.

But if anything, Anik may be understating what we're seeing.

After beginning his run with fights against the anonymous likes of Andreas Michailidis (KO 2) and Bruno Silva (UD 3), Pereira has followed with seven consecutive fights against five reigning, former or future champions, two of whom—Procházka and Hill—had surrendered their belts by injury rather than defeat.

He's won six of the seven (five by KO), beaten each of the five foes (Procházka twice), and done so in an assassin-like manner that's thrilled crowds from Las Vegas to New York City, while flying in the face of the devout family man persona he portrays outside the cage.

"He's the same humble guy that walked into the UFC," analyst Daniel Cormier said. "This dude continues to raise the bar."

Imagine that...every bit as accomplished, and a million times more likeable.

And apparently not close to being satisfied either.

Pereira dropped hints prior to the Procházka rematch about testing the waters at heavyweight, where current champion Jon Jones arrived after his own long reign at 205. Pereira said the idea hadn't generated a lot of interest in the organization prior to Saturday night, but the crowd reaction at T-Mobile Arena suggests the time might be right.

After all, each of the top-five fighters at light heavyweight (entering Saturday) has had a recent chance at the big time, with three (Procházka, Hill and Blachowicz) losing to Pereira himself, while No. 2 Magomed Ankalaev drew with Blachowicz for a vacant title in 2022 and No. 5 Aleksandar Rakić was KO'd by Procházka in April.

At 6'4", Pereira would go nose-to-nose with the aforementioned Jones and stand just an inch shorter than interim champ Tom Aspinall, and his kickboxing pedigree would make for a fascinating duel with the likes of second-ranked Ciryl Gane, who transitioned to MMA after a 13-bout incarnation as a professional Muay Thai fighter.

Just three years ago, as an untested Pereira prepped for a gargantuan from the LFA to the UFC, it would have seemed ridiculous. But as the crowd filed out into a late Saturday night in Vegas, it seemed a lot more like something else.

Inevitable.

"He's been talking about going up, I say let him go," analyst Joe Rogan said. "It's actually impossible what he's doing. And he's getting better every time."