An old clip of UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira resurfaced online and went viral. The clip showed Pereira working in a tire repair shop.
Alex Pereira became the new UFC middleweight champion after defeating his old kickboxing rival Israel Adesanya at UFC 281. Poatan was losing on the judges scorecards
but managed to pull off an incredible comeback in the final round. He delivered a combination of punches and the referee stopped the action, marking his victory over the long reigning champion.
With his interesting history with Adesanya, Alex Pereira quickly became the center of attention. After becoming the champion, many fans started getting curious about his background.
Many successful UFC champions have a gloomy background where they struggle in life due to poverty. For example another UFC champion Charles Oliveira grew up in a favela barely scraping by before he chose to learn BJJ,
Conor McGregor was on welfare at one time and was barely making ends meet as a part time plumber.
Alex Pereira isn’t so different. The Brazilian became an inspiration after fans learned that he lived a poor life back in his hometown in Sao Paulo. Recently, an old video of Pereira resurfaced and gained fans’ attention. The clip showed Pereira back in his hometown working at a tire repair shop.
In the short video uploaded to social media, Pereira can be seen checking on a tire and smiling when he spotted the camera. Fans quickly jumped to the comment section to give respect to Pereira.
“Real motivation right there. Love him or hate him. You got to respect him.”
“Man stuff like this makes me happy. So cool to see someone come from humble beginnings, work their assess off and then become world champions. Happy for him.”
Some fans noticed Pereira’s smile in the clip, which is kind of rare knowing that the 35-year-old hardly showed any expression.
One fan wrote, “The sport took his smile. The sweet sacrifice”. Another one wrote, “So he is able to laugh.”