‘AJ’ Wants To See ‘Poatan’ In Boxing

As if Pereira doesn’t already have a lot of big fight options, now we have Joshua suggesting he consider a big money boxing match as well.

There’s a lot of MMA fighters out there that think they’d do well in boxing. Less rare are boxers who agree with those opinions. But now we have boxing heavyweight great Anthony Joshua suggesting UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira should step out of the cage and into the ring.

“Alex Pereira should make a boxing debut one day,” Joshua wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Pereira isn’t a complete stranger to boxing. He has one official exhibition match on his record: a TKO win over Marcelo de Souza Cruz in 2017. But this was right in the middle of Alex’s seven year kickboxing career. Six months later “Poatan” won the Glory middleweight championship and he put aside any ambition to keep boxing.

Now he sounds open to the idea … of a one-off match, at least.

“I’m honored you think so,” Pereira replied. “It’s always been my dream, I’m 37 I cannot make a career in it so who do you recommend I fight?”

“The options are endless champ,” Joshua replied. “I am sure something can be done. Drop [258 MGT [Joshua’s agent] a line.”

Just “AJ” being nice, or is he interested in fighting Pereira down the line? Unless it’s way down the line, we’re not particularly interested. “Poatan” is now one of the biggest stars in the UFC, and he may explode into super-stardom over the next year or two with the right fights.

There’s Jon Jones. There’s the Israel Adesanya trilogy fight. There’s Tom Aspinall. And they all compete in the same sport as Pereira. MMA fighters boxing is an okay sideshow, but it’s getting a bit tired at this point. Diaz vs. Masvidal 2 was great and all … but it would have been better under MMA rules.

What do you think, Maniacs? Do you have any interest in seeing how “Poatan” would do in boxing?