Vancouver — Yousri Belgaroui might be best known as Alex Pereira’s former foe in the kickboxing realm, and now as a current training partner of “Poatan.”
He’s also a UFC fighter, winning on the Contender Series and making a successful debut at UFC Vancouver on Saturday, where the towering Dutch middleweight finished Azamat Bekoev via TKO in the third round of their preliminary card bout.
Following the fight at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Belgaroui (9-3) told Cageside Press about the biggest lesson he’s learned working with light heavyweight champ Pereira.
“Mindset. I mean yes, there are a lot of technical things we train and I learn from him. But the way he approaches fighting is amazing,” stated Belgaroui. “It’s hard to grasp in words, you can’t even put it into martial arts words, you’ve really got to put it in a warrior style, or war and how people used to approach war back in the vintage times. Actually going in there, not sleeping for four days, not eating, going in the cold and obliterating an opponent. That’s how close you’ve got to get to coming in how he approaches a fight, and I take a lot from that.”
Belgaroui understands that some fans may struggle to make sense of the picture he’s painting, but added that how Alex Pereira approaches a fight “resonates with me too.” And it seems to resonate with a large group of fight fans who have gotten behind fighters like Pereira and Jiri Prochazka, who carry the warrior mentality with them.
“That’s true. Yeah. I think what we’re doing in here is closest to the gladiators back in the day. Why we’re still making movies about that, why we’re still reading books about that – because it’s a very primal and beautiful thing that humans still have,” stated Belgaroui. “We are morally evolved into not killing each other for no reason, but we have made it into an art where we get close to killing each other but in a respectful way.”
“It’s very hard to paint that picture too, but if you love the sport, you understand this. You know that we love our opponents in a very weird way, after the fight. But to get in there and actually try to smash his head in, in the worst way possible, in an artistic way, it’s hard to understand. But the true fans understand it, and the martial artists understand it, and that’s why we all resonate with one another.”
Watch the full UFC Vancouver post-fight press conference with Yousri Belgaroui above.
