{"id":96172,"date":"2025-08-26T03:11:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T03:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96172\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T03:11:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T03:11:09","slug":"pfls-alexei-pergande-lays-out-lofty-goals-invites-everyone-to-hop-on-hype-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/96172\/","title":{"rendered":"PFL&#8217;s Alexei Pergande lays out lofty goals, invites everyone to hop on hype train"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HOLLYWOOD, Fla. \u2013 Alexi Pergande&#8217;s confidence is growing with each fight, getting one step closer to realizing his dream of becoming a champion.<\/p>\n<p>Pergande (7-0) has fought all of his professional bouts under the PFL ecosystem. His professional debut was in the PFL Challenger Series in April 2022, where he won by second-round submission. Six fights later, he picked up his third pro stoppage by submitting Ethan Goss with a D&#8217;arce choke <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/2025-pfl-world-tournament-10-114535072.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:in the first round;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in the first round<\/a> at 2025 PFL World Tournament 10.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in a place where it&#8217;s very rare to have the opportunity that I did, growing up with PFL since my professional debut,&#8221; Pergande told reporters during a post-fight news conference. &#8220;I feel like being in a big promotion with all the lights on me, all the cameras, all the pressure, it just makes me a better fighter. I know when I&#8217;m eventually in the tournament, I&#8217;m going to be so much more calm, I&#8217;m going to be so much more collected. Even though I only have seven fights, which isn&#8217;t that much, I can feel that fight that fight-by-fight, every time I go out there, it&#8217;s just like another day at sparring. I go in there, I know what to do, and I trust my skills.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A product of Kill Cliff FC, there&#8217;s no shortage of championship-level talent to help Pergande sharpen his skills. The 24-year-old featherweight aims to enter the PFL World Tournament next year. There are a few boxes he wants to check off, each progressively bigger: win the PFL tournament, become the face of the brand, and ultimately become the best fighter on the planet.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I do (see myself as a future face of the PFL),&#8221; Pergande said. &#8220;That&#8217;s always the goal. I want to be the best in the world. I want to be fighting the best in the world, and I want to prove a point. I know that I&#8217;ve been working for this my whole life, so I know that it is 100 percent doable. I believe in myself, I believe in my team, and I train with the best in the world every single day, so that&#8217;s all I need. I&#8217;m excited for the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230; Just know that I am going to be the best in the world. That&#8217;s gonna be my story, and I know it. Just follow along, hop on while it&#8217;s early &#8217;cause the train is leaving. It&#8217;s going, so you gotta hop on board and ride with me throughout the whole thing. I will be a world champion, and we can watch this interview back \u2013 even play it at the finals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/pfl\/2025\/08\/25\/pfl-alexei-pergande-career-goals-hype-train\/85823120007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PFL rising prospect Alexei Pergande lays out lofty career goals;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">PFL rising prospect Alexei Pergande lays out lofty career goals<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOLLYWOOD, Fla. \u2013 Alexi Pergande&#8217;s confidence is growing with each fight, getting one step closer to realizing his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[34610,64,63,786,785,70778,70776,70777,70775,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-96172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-2025-pfl-world-tournament","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fighting","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pergande","14":"tag-pfl-challenger-series","15":"tag-professional-bouts","16":"tag-professional-debut","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}