Fresh off of defeating Israel Adesanya at UFC 305 to record his first successful title defense, middleweight world champion Dricus du Plessis was immediately hit with two challenges.
One challenge was expected, but the other came as sudden surprise.
After watching du Plessis force Adesanya to submit to a rear-naked choke, UFC light heavyweight world champion and former middleweight titleholder Alex Pereira took to his Instagram account and expressed interest in moving down in weight to challenge du Plessis.
"I'm coming down to 185 one more time," Pereira said as translated from Portugese.
Pereira delivered a second-round TKO of Jiří Procházka in June to retain his light heavyweight title and had voiced the possibility of jumping up to heavyweight prior to calling out du Plessis.
The other man to challenge "Stillknocks?" Another former middleweight world champion in Sean Strickland who lost the title to du Plessis via split-decision in January.
During the buildup to du Plessis vs. Adesanya, Dana White had already established that the winner of the UFC 305 main event will clash with Strickland, the No. 1 contender at middleweight, next.
Whether Pereira can now disrupt those plans remains to be seen.
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