Alex Pereira will face Sergey Pavlovich at UFC 335 in December. This is the second heavyweight bout for the former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champion.
As he prepares to face the hard-hitting Pavlovic, Pereira has a visit from one of the UFC heavyweight GOATs; Cain Velasquez. I wonder if they were you talking about Daniel Cormier?
Check out this video from Velasquez’s Instagram account, which was posted early this morning.
The video shows Velasquez, a former NCAA Division I wrestler, showing Pereira how to move on both ends of a body lock. He seemed particularly happy with how Pereira began to escape the body lock.
Around the same time, Velasquez also shared a photo of himself posing with other active UFC Performance Institute fighters, including heavyweights Johnny Walker and Sean Sharaf.
Velasquez, who turned 44 this summer, looks in great shape. However, there is no news on whether the former UFC heavyweight champion will return to MMA competition anytime soon (or ever).
For Pereira, Velasquez can likely offer a lot of wrestling knowledge. Poatan’s reputation as one of the deadliest strikers in UFC history is undeniable. But it’s fair to say that a lot of people aren’t that excited about his grappling and grappling abilities.
This light workout with Velasquez is unlikely to be tied to any specific strategy Pereira is planning for Pavlovic. Pavlovic has won nearly eighty percent of his UFC fights by KO/TKO. If he gets a body lock on Pereira, he will likely try to break away and then land a right hook.
If Pereira shows wrestling on the mats at UFC 335 against someone else who isn’t at home, maybe that session with Velasquez was a lot more meaningful than it first appears.
