Another former Alex Pereira foe seeks to earn UFC contract

In what has become a bit of a trend of late, former Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira opponent Artem Vakhitov will compete on Dana White’s Contender Series tonight for a shot at a UFC contract.

Following in the footsteps of Cesar Almeida and Yousri Belgaouri, Vakhitov comes from the world of kickboxing, with claims to a win over Pereira – beating the then-GLORY champion in his last kickboxing bout – propelling him and his predecessors to an MMA career.

Just like Alex himself got to the top with his victories over Israel Adesanya helping him, so too do these men believe they can do with Poatan himself. 

Almeida succeeded and is now 2-0 in the UFC, but Belgaorui – a much more advanced kickboxing who is now a close training partner of Pereira – failed abysmally. Will Vakhitov improve the former kickboxer record on DWCS or hurt it?

Artem comes into this fight with only a 2-1 pro record, although his lone loss was by injury. Still, with little experience it is hard to know how prepared he will be for this level. Kickboxing experience can only go so far.

However, that experience disadvantage may not apply here, as Vakhitov’s opponent, Islem Masraf, is only 3-0 himself. If he was a wrestler that would maybe still be an advantage, but Masraf is a striking specialist; he has two wins by knockout and one by guillotine choke. All his amateur MMA wins in France were by knockout as well.

In this case, the kickboxing experience may be enough for Artem Vakhitov, though age will not be on his side. At thirty-three years old, Vakhitov cedes five years in age to Masraf.

The UFC says they look for younger contenders on this show, so Vakhitov may be at a disadvantage to earn a contract even if he wins, but the reality is that older contestants are often on, and only a few who have a good performance are rejected for their age after being invited on the show.

If Vakhitov wins, he will join a shallow UFC light-heavyweight division. Again, time will not be on his side, but if he can win a few fights then the potential is there for him to carve a favorable path to the top and challenge the champ, like Pereira did before him at middleweight just two years ago.