Preview: UFC Fight Night 203 ‘Santos vs. Ankalaev’

Middleweights

NR | Alex Pereira (4-1) vs. NR | Bruno Silva (22-6)
Odds: Pereira (-170), Silva (+150)

Violence! It's hard to call Alex Pereira a prospect, but he's one of the more interesting entrants in the UFC's middleweight division - after a long and successful kickboxing career, during which he scored a 2017 knockout of current champ Israel Adesanya, "Poatan" made the transition to full-time mixed martial artist upon signing with the UFC last fall. And in his promotional debut against Andreas Michailidis this past November, Pereira looked like a converted kickboxer; Michailidis succeeded in turning the first round into an ugly grind, only to eat a flying knee immediately upon the start of the second round. Pereira is 34 years old, so with his built-in history with Adesanya, there's little reason to do anything but push the Brazilian up the middleweight ladder and hope things work out - and so he gets a dangerous fight here against countryman Silva. After a successful career globally, Silva was signed by the UFC in 2019, only to immediately fail a drug test. But the UFC stuck by "Blindado" through his suspension until he debuted last June, and Silva certainly made up for lost time, racking up three brutal knockout wins in six months and marking himself as a fighter to watch. Silva's fights are an adventure, as he looks to do little else but throw down with wild knockout punches, though he can certainly hold his own in other phases; Silva's debut saw him show off some impressively brutal ground-and-pound in finishing Wellington Turman, but that was only after Turman took the fight to the ground and Silva was able to turn things around. If Silva pursues his wrestling at all, he should be able to win this handily given what he's shown while being on top of his opponents. But this does feel like a fight where Silva is going to ignore his advantages and hunt for a knockout against someone capable of blasting him first; the pick is Pereira via first-round knockout.

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