Outside Source
Michel Pereira will not be fighting Roman Dolidze at UFC Louisville after all.
Pereira went on Instagram to reveal he agreed to competing on the June 8 card in Kentucky, but turned down the offer when the company said Dolidze would be his opponent. Both middleweights train at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.
“I didn’t agree to this fight,” Pereira said in Portuguese on Friday. “The man trains with me every day at the P.I., at Xtreme Couture. He agreed to it, but I haven’t. To me, it’s not the moment to fight him. If he agreed to it, that’s his problem. I was surprised he agreed to it, really. To me, in my head, he’s a training partner, a friend. I see I’m not.”
Pereira said he knows he will have to end up facing training partners in the UFC eventually, but was not prepared to find a new gym to prepare for a fight that is scheduled to go down in less than a month.
“I would have to find another gym and organize everything to fight him,” Pereira said. “That’s why I didn’t accept it. He trained at Xtreme, and since I’m new there, I would have to go out and train somewhere else. I don’t even know where I would train. It’s too much logistics to fight in a month.”
Pereira was victorious twice in a span of two months in the UFC, beating Michal Oleksiejczuk and Ihor Potieria in bonus-winning performances to boost his winning streak to eight. Dolize lost his past two to Marvin Vettori and Nassourdine Imavov.
“I’ll remove him from [a list] of those I won’t fight and add to [a list] of those I’d fight,” Pereira said. “I’ll organize myself to fight him. When they offered me a fight [at UFC Louisville], they didn’t say the opponent. It was a bummer when they said the opponent, and I said ‘no.’”
This article first appeared at MMA Fighting – All Posts
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