Alcoholic to UFC champion
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In November 2022, Israel Adesanya was a dominant UFC middleweight champion, winning the belt in 2019 and successfully defending it five times. Alex Pereira was a newcomer to MMA, joining the UFC in 2021. However, he did have a long kickboxing history, even beating Israel twice in that sport back in 2016 and 2017. Alex was fighting unranked guys just a year ago, so it was not a surprise that Alex was a +185 underdog against Israel at UFC 281, even with past kickboxing victories.
Even getting to a UFC championship match was an incredible accomplishment because Pereira was an alcoholic who started kickboxing in 2009 to escape drinking. However, he did more than fight for the belt; he won it with a TKO in the final round.
Quotes
At this time, I was already the national champion in kickboxing. My addiction was pulling my career down. I tried to drink only on weekends, but I couldn’t. It was too hard for me. (I was) 27, or something. I just drank everyday, everyday man. I could hardly stay one day off of it. At the worst times, I drank almost one litre of booze a day.
Alex Pereira
Then I started drinking, I started drinking a lot. That really messed up my life. I can say I became an alcoholic. I had no education, so I started thinking about what I was going to do. Since I was a hoodlum, I liked to start fights, I thought professional fighting could be a way out. It worked for a while. I became a national kickboxing champion while drinking. Then it got to a point where I couldn’t do it anymore.
Alex Pereira
References
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Alex Pereira reveals crippling addiction he battled with before combat sports success: “I drank more and more.”
UFC Middleweight champion, Alex Pereira, has revealed he suffered from a crippling addiction to alcohol that he developed at just twelve. For every great champion to be exactly that, a great champion, they must face struggles in life. For Alex Pereira, the newly crowned middleweight champion, this is no different.
LowKickMMA
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UFC’s Alex Pereira details past struggle with alcoholism, celebrates ten years of sobriety
UFC middleweight and former Glory kickboxing champion Alex Pereira knows the feeling all too well and can speak about it from experience. Although ‘Poatan’ does not speak about it much, he did struggle with alcoholism during the early part of his career, until he was able to overcome it ten years ago.
Bloody Elbow
