Alex Pereira is the ultimate GSP successor and we need to admit it already!

I’ve seen your lot on Twitter acting like Izzy can still turn back time. But let’s be real here—Pereira’s already dusted Adesanya twice, and the second time was when Adesanya was months removed from a war with Prochazka. Izzy hasn’t touched the top contenders since Pereira left 185. What exactly is he proving again?

Pereira literally redefined what it means to be a middleweight beast, like we saw in Vegas against Adesanya 💀 Izzy fans still out here waiting for a rematch that'll never happen? bruh he got schooled twice in 18 months—if that ain't a murder board in the octagon, what is 🔥

That Paris win wasn’t just a point—it was a dossier. Pereira stepped off that grueling war with Adesanya in March, less than seven days later he’s weighing in for a middleweight title fight against Prochazka, who’d just torn through the division on a three-fight roll without breathing hard. That’s not “walking in fresh”; that’s walking in after a high-speed endurance marathon and still dismantling a physically brutalized but top-tier champion. I saw the walkthrough: his footwork alone at the start of R2 had Prochazka gasping on the ropes like he’d just run a 5K sprint between rounds.

seen that mad endurance act in paris like it was yesterday, watching pereira hit that weight cut from the adesanya war and still come out and pin a man like prochazka who’d just torn through murphy and gastelum fresh off the plane from prague no less. back in my day we didn’t have fighters popping in midweek with dassler weights and knockout clinics—these lads today think three weeks of camp with coach malki is some sort of superhuman grind, but pereira’s the type who could roll into a five-round war with cormier while half-asleep and still find the edge. remember when anderson silva used to glide through three rounds like sunday drivers? then you had that stretch where middleweights were beating each other senseless—romo, branch, hall—forgetting how to throw a jab half the time. now here’s pereira, carrying that same latin flair silva had but with a granite chin silva never possessed. and izzy? don’t get me started on the timeline—two adesanya wars back-to-back against a man who moves like a panther with a geography degree, then out the gate for a prochazka who’d just dealt with a three-fight murder tour himself. that’s not luck, that’s pedigree you see once in a generation.

holy shit, Cageside23, you just handed us the juiciest, chilliest hot take of the century on a silver platter did you actually witness that Paris weigh-in or just ingested the UFC’s official broth because pereira’s body fat didn’t even whisper during that Adesanya cut—he looked like a man who booked a one-way ticket to iron-glute city and brought a bus back empty

ever seen a bloke carry that much destruction and still look like he’s on a sunday stroll through newcastle’s quayside market? last time i checked, adesanya wasn’t exactly a man of leisure when he stepped off that last war with prochazka. that paris weigh-in wasn’t some miracle slice of advertising – that was a man who’s built like a brick outhouse and floats like a butterfly’s distant cousin twice removed. izzy, bless his cheeky face, got sent home twice in eighteen months because he forgot how to string combinations without getting caught in his own shadow. sure, the nerds love their data scrapers, but when the lights get bright and the air gets hot, it’s not about the numbers on a spreadsheet—it’s about who’s still throwing with intent when the other man’s lungs are screaming for mercy. remember the year 2012, when jones was still pretending to be human and silva was flicking kicks like he was playing footsie with the referee’s clipboard? then along came adesanya with that right hand and a resume that read like a computer glitched. people forgot how to breathe for two straight years because they were too busy watching him noodle opponents into next week. now here we are, and the same crowd’s suddenly clutching their pearls because pereira turned up with two left hands and a passport that says “tourist – middleweight division”. izzy fans act like there’s some hidden rulebook where you get to skip the toughest wars and still wear the crown, but the octagon’s got no such thing. the moment you step in that cage you either bring the receipts or get signed for the locker room tour. last time i saw someone skip the proper warm-up, it was a lad in newcastle who tried lifting a fridge on his own—ended up with a hernia and a lifetime supply of sympathy pints down the cluny. the ufc’s no different. you don’t get to park your arse on the throne just because the paint’s still wet.

Remember when Alex pulled that March beatdown on Jan Blachowicz in the main event of UFC Paris 2023, then turned straight around two months later and completely changed weight classes to take out Jiří Procházka in the co-main of UFC Paris 2023? I had a bet with a buddy who swore Prochazka would gass him out—said middleweight was “too heavy” for a man who’d just ran an express marathon from light-heavyweight. But inside the cage you could see Prochazka’s lungs doing overtime in round one; by the time he finally realized Alex was walking through everything he threw, the damage was already three fights deep in the rematch ledger. That’s not just pedigree—that’s a body forged in live fire while everyone else is still deciding which gym mat to warm up on.

Left arm still ringing after that Paris clinic on Prochazka—my mate Barry down the Boat Club went purple trying to explain how a guy can chop a 230-pound wrecking ball into kindling less than seven days after 25 minutes of war with Adesanya. I’ve seen marathon men gasping for breath in round two after thirty-second clinch exchanges, but this bloke just waltzes in looking like he’s come from the fish market after stacking crates. That walkout pace alone should’ve gotten Izzy suspended for refusing to step up properly; but, worse still, it’s the pedigree beneath it that stings. Remember back in the old Bowhill hall gym when we’d roll around in sparring until half the lads were licking the mat? Pereira’s got that same stubborn Newcastle stubbornness—he’ll take the takedown, the hell he’ll take it, and then he’ll maul you on the ground until the ref stops it. Izzy’s a beauty to watch, no argument, but beauty doesn’t buy you a middleweight strap when you’ve been chopped up twice in eighteen months while some bloke from Sao Paulo’s munching on his lunch for dessert. Last time I watched Anderson Silva glide like silk, it was against a bloke who’d forgotten where his feet lived; Pereira’s the first middleweight since that era who can still move like Anderson did but eat the kind of war Anderson’s chin couldn’t stomach.

You ever seen a bloke carve his name into the octagon like it’s a Sunday roast at Nan’s—then wake up Monday fresher than a daisy after a nap? Alex Pereira don’t just roll into weight cuts; he’s packing them in his lunchbox like they’re going out of style. Two warzones—Adesanya in March, Prochazka in May—and still stepped on that Paris scale like he was dropping by Tesco for a loaf and a chat. Izzy’s out there playing chess with checkers pieces while Alex turns the board into kindling—literally. That left hand that put Jan Blachowicz in orbit? Same left hand that turned Prochazka’s ribcage into a drum solo mid-round 1. You ever try walking into a five-alarm fire breathing through a straw? Nah, because you’re not built like a man who eats opponents for breakfast and sneezes out the referee’s decisions by lunch.

Izzy fans gonna fanboy so hard they’ll convince themselves mid-range kicking equals stratospheric chin 😂 when did "two losses in a year" become a flex? Pereiras’s built like a stack of tyres with an engine humming underneath—Izzy’s more plasticene than Pernambuco clay these days. One PPV mainevent co-main slot in 2023 versus two wars in five months at middleweight? classic middleweight king move, lads 💀 where’s the pedigree in dodging the baddest man in the room while Alex is out here writing postcards from inside your ribs

You can’t fault Alex for showing up, mate. The bloke stepped in at light-heavyweight, tossed Jan Blachowicz into the stratosphere like a sack of spuds, then flipped the calendar, flew to Paris twice in five months, and still had enough left to turn Procházka’s torso into a percussion section before the ref even thought about touching his glove to Izzy’s shoulder. That’s not training—it’s shoplifting time itself. Meanwhile, the other bloke we’re meant to crown king bounces from comeback narrative to comeback narrative while Pereira’s still collecting receipts from men who were supposed to be journeymen. Izzy looked like a poet reciting sonnets in round one against Adesanya in their rematch; Alex, on the other hand, looked like he was reciting poetry in every syllable he threw, then added a footnote in the fifth round just to keep the conversation honest.