{"id":509969,"date":"2026-03-02T18:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509969\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T18:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T18:53:08","slug":"alex-pereira-vacates-ufc-light-heavyweight-belt-jiri-prochazka-vs-carlos-ulberg-set-sports-news-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/509969\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira vacates UFC light heavyweight belt, Jiri Prochazka vs Carlos Ulberg set \u2014 Sports News Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sqsrte-large\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Pereira teases heavyweight opponent<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Pereira reclaimed the title with an 80-second knockout of Magomed Ankalaev in October, avenging the only loss he suffered at light heavyweight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The former two-division GLORY kickboxing champion leaves light heavyweight with a record of 6-1.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">He will now seek to become the UFC\u2019s first three-weight world champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Indeed, Pereira would be the first fighter to even fight for the belt in three separate weight classes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">The Brazilian currently walks around at 242lbs, which is only five pounds lighter than top heavyweight contender Ciryl Gane\u2019s last fighting weight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">An interim heavyweight title fight at the historic UFC White House card in June is a possibility.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Gane or Jon Jones are potential opponents, with champion Tom Aspinall still recovering from eye surgery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Pereira teased that news for his next bout was imminent, saying: \u201cMy next fight is very close to being announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cIt took a little while, but it\u2019s very close to something being announced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">MORE FROM SAMUEL FARIS-CLARK: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesportsnewsblitz.com\/news\/mma-news-tatsuro-taira-gets-title-shot-against-joshua-van-over-manel-kape\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MMA news: Tatsuro Taira gets title shot against Joshua Van over Manel Kape<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pereira teases heavyweight opponent Pereira reclaimed the title with an 80-second knockout of Magomed Ankalaev in October, avenging&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-509969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}