Alex Pereira and Glover Teixeira made their recent sparring session public, as in right down the streets of Norwalk.
UFC champions Alex Pereira and Glover Teixeira have been sparring and training together for years. In a recent IG post, Poatan showed a clip of him and his trainer taking advantage of the red light on the traffic light to do a short sparring session in the street.
Pereira recently accompanied Teixeira to Norwalk, Connecticut in the United States where the latter held a seminar for charity at the Jonesly MMA Academy which is located near the scene of their street fight.
As you can see in the video, Pereira starts the session by throwing jabs and leg kicks. Glover shoots for an early takedown but Poatan shrugs it off. The current UFC light heavyweight champion then throws more kicks to Keep Teixeira off him and ends their mini-fight with a double-leg takedown just as the traffic light turned green.
Alex and Glover are the mainstays of the Teixeira MMA & Fitness Gym in Danbury, Connecticut. Teixeira opened the gym in 2014 with his wife Ingrid who is from the place. In the summer of 2020, while preparing for a fight against Thiago Santos, Teixeira reached out to Pereira, who had then decided he was going to leave kickboxing to focus on MMA.
Santos was one of the hardest punchers in the UFC light heavyweight division so Teixeira needed a sparring partner to simulate his length and punching power. Alex was the perfect guy. Teixeira beat Santos to earn a shot at the 205-pound title then held by Jan Blachowicz. He snatched the belt at UFC 267 becoming the second-oldest fighter to win a belt in the UFC.
Glover lost the belt in a heartbreaking defeat against Jiri Prochazka at UFC 275. Glover retired after suffering a second straight defeat against Jamahal Hill for the vacant belt at UFC 283 in January 2023.
After Poatan suffered a knockout loss to arch-rival Israel Adesanya at UFC 287, he moved up in weight looking to avenge Glover’s loss to Prochazka. He would do that at UFC 295 last November 11 when he sensationally handed Prochazka his first loss in the UFC and his first MMA defeat since New Year’s Eve 2015.
Pereira is still waiting for his next assignment. It is believed that he will face Jamahal Hill next but Hill is still recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon which forced him to vacate the title. Last month Pereira talked about fighting Hill next and adding more UFC records to his name.
“People, let’s focus on what matters, which is Jamahal, and then I’ll focus on breaking another record and doing two title defenses in the least amount of time.”
Alex Pereira
Alex Pereira set the UFC record for the fewest bouts needed to win two different UFC belts. While doing so, he also became the first fighter in UFC history to win both the middleweight and light heavyweight titles.