There appears to be an issue for former UFC middleweight and light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, just not the one that many thought on Wednesday. Pereira’s X account, formerly Twitter, posted about his frustrations with UFC and that he’s considering retirement, but Pereira posted a video on social media shortly after claiming he was hacked.
“I always answered the UFC’s calls, but if they want to play with me, we can do that,” Pereira’s account wrote. “I’ve never spoken poorly of the UFC, but with what I’ve just heard, I’m disheartened.
“I’ve already had thoughts of not fighting anymore, and after what was just relayed to me, this may be the start.”
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“I’ve received a ton of messages from everyone who saw a post on my Twitter. I didn’t even know about it, I was hacked,” Pereira said through a translation. “It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, you guys see, but I was hacked and I’ll resolve it. I don’t even know what’s going on. I have a great relationship with UFC. People like to do bad things, that’s that.”
To Pereira’s point, his last post on X was on April 24 and before that was April 11. The post has remained up for over two hours as of publication of this story.
Fans await his next move after losing the UFC light heavyweight title to Magomed Ankalaev in March.
Pereira, contending with Ilia Topuria, was a frontrunner for 2024 Fighter of the Year. The former two-division UFC and Glory champion headlined three pay-per-views in 2024, including the milestone UFC 300 event and UFC International Fight Week.
Pereira was lauded for headlining UFC 300 and UFC 303 less than three months apart. The company took longer than expected to find a suitable main event for its heavily promoted 300th PPV, and scrambled to fix the Conor McGregor-sized hole left in 303. On both occasions, Pereira stepped in when many defending champions likely wouldn’t.
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