{"id":725658,"date":"2026-06-09T18:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/725658\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T18:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T18:01:09","slug":"alex-pereira-doubts-tom-aspinall-will-be-ready-to-unify-after-ufc-freedom-250","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/725658\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira doubts Tom Aspinall will be ready to unify after UFC Freedom 250"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Pereira<\/a> wants to remain active after UFC Freedom 250<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) meets Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) for the interim heavyweight title in Sunday’s co-main event (Paramount+<\/a>) at the White House in Washington DC (Paramount+<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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The winner is expected to unify his belt with UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall<\/a> (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC). However, with Aspinall still yet to be cleared for sparring after undergoing double eye surgery<\/a>, Pereira doesn’t plan on waiting for him.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that Tom’s going to be ready,” Pereira told\u00a0TNT Fight Sports<\/a>\u00a0through an interpreter. “I don’t think he’s even training. He’s recovering from surgery and then training, and I’m a guy that I want to get ready, I want to fight somebody as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

“I want to get another fight as soon as possible. I want to make sure I finish the year. Again, I’m 38 years old. I ain’t got time to lose, so I need to fight.”<\/p>\n

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Pereira fought three times each in 2022, 2023, and 2024. This past year saw him lose his UFC light heavyweight title to Magomed Ankalaev then regain it with a quick TKO this past October<\/a>. He vacated his belt, and is now looking to become the first fighter in UFC history to win a version of a belt three different weight divisions.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Aspinall and his representative Eddie Hearn as clearly in a difficult situation with UFC and not on the same page, leaving questions about what the future at heavyweight looks like beyond UFC Freedom 250.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Alex Pereira casts doubt on Tom Aspinall fight after UFC White House<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Pereira wants to remain active after UFC Freedom 250. Pereira (13-3 MMA, 10-2 UFC) meets Ciryl Gane…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[11038,49,48,641,638,82,1972,640,206958],"class_list":["post-725658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-alex-pereira","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-tom-aspinall","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-freedom-250"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725658","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=725658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}