Brazilian openweight hero Michel Pereira will make his return to welterweight for his Octagon debut, as he faces England’s Danny Roberts at UFC Rochester, which takes place next month.
Michel Pereira will be making his UFC debut next month, against English veteran Danny Roberts in Rochester, New York, Combate broke the story earlier today.
Michel Pereira has fought at a variety of weight classes throughout his MMA career. From welterweight, to middleweight, to light heavyweight and even openweight, Pereira has bounced around since making his MMA debut in December of 2011. Despite being only 25, Pereira has fought 33 times, gaining a record of 22-9-0-2. Most recently, Pereira went viral after competing in Road FC, where he went on to defeat Dae Sung Kim via second-round TKO. The opponent was not the impressive part, it was the way he did it. During the bout, Pereira was using wild tactics that even saw the Brazilian grab the top of the cage to do a backflip mid-fight. Here’s the video.
Michel Pereira has one loss in his last nine fights, which is reason enough for UFC to hire him after doing a LIONSAULT in an MMA fightpic.twitter.com/UQy2vOtZWD
— Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com (@SeanRossSapp) February 24, 2019
Meanwhile, Roberts will be looking to bounce back from a controversial submission loss to fellow Brazilian Claudio Silva in his last Octagon appearance last month. Prior to the loss though, Roberts had won back-to-back bouts against Oliver Enkamp and David Zawada. Roberts has tough his fair share of competition too, as he has fought Jim Wallhead, Mike Perry, Dominique Steele and Nordine Taleb so far in his MMA career. Roberts holds a 5-3 record in the UFC.
UFC Rochester takes place May 18 at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, New York. Former lightweight champion and former welterweight interim title-challenger Rafael dos Anjos faces former interim lightweight title-challenger Kevin Lee in Lee’s welterweight debut in the main event.
