Mailbag: Can Alex Pereira pull ahead of Jon Jones in GOAT debates by taking more risks to make UFC history?

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Alex Pereira gave up his UFC light heavyweight title to chase a belt in a third division. Will all those risks some day put him ahead of Jon Jones in terms of MMA legacy? (Photo by Cooper Neill/Zuffa LLC)Cooper Neill via Getty Images

Will Jon Jones look back years from now and wish he’d done some things differently in his career, especially if Alex Pereira fights on until he replaces him in some GOAT conversations? Is there any reason to think Ilia Topuria won’t return from his divorce-related hiatus to dominate the same way as before?

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA on X or @Ben_Fowlkes on Threads.

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@Screenplaya: Is Jon the GOAT if Alex becomes champ-champ-champ? Will Jon regret never having tried to defend that "title" when he had the chance?

The thing Jon Jones has over Alex Pereira is a legacy of total dominance over a division for years — basically an entire era of the sport. Apart from one disqualification loss due to his violation of a rule we don’t even have on the books anymore, Jones has an unblemished professional record as a fighter. (He has a very blemished record as a person, however.) Jones lost his UFC title a few times, but never due to defeat inside the cage. Pereira, on the other hand, lost first the middleweight title with a knockout loss to Israel Adesanya, and later the light heavyweight title via a decision defeat to Magomed Ankalaev (though he avenged that one later the same year).

Maybe those losses are just what comes with a willingness to take big risks and challenge yourself. Pereira is chasing UFC gold in his third weight class now. That is not a person who’s going to let concerns about manicuring the perfect record get in the way of his desire to chase history.

Jones, on the other hand, always seemed very conscious of shaping perception. It’s the whole reason he insisted on fighting former champ Stipe Miocic instead of Tom Aspinall, who was then the interim champ. He’s always wanted wins that look good on paper and has shied away from his chances to do the really historic stuff.

I don’t know if he’ll come to regret that, but I do think it will be part of how people view his legacy in the sport. Fans will remember that he had the chance to fight Aspinall and cash in big, but opted to retire instead. Then he decided he wanted back in for the White House event, but reportedly didn’t like the money enough to actually do it. It’s a sputtering end (assuming it’s really the end) to a career that began with a sudden burst into the big time. Whatever happens for Pereira, he won’t have to wonder if he left too many opportunities untried and unfulfilled.

@thegiddyhorse: Does Topuria return with the championship caliber edge over the division he had before the divorce hiatus?

Ilia Topuria has never been the most active guy on the roster. He broke into the UFC in 2020 and has had just nine fights since then. He’s never fought more than twice in a calendar year since joining the UFC, but he’s also never looked anything close to rusty. He last fought in late June of 2025, so this title unifier against Justin Gaethje will be about only a year between fights for him. Outwardly, I don’t see any reason we shouldn’t expect to see that same holy terror in this fight that we saw in all the others.

Unless we’re thinking that the stress of the divorce itself took something out of him. My own experience suggests it’s the months and years leading up to the divorce that really drain you, but after that follows a period of ecstatic joy. (Though that can also distract a fella in different ways.)

I think it was smart of Topuria to take the time off until he could really focus on his return. I also think Gaethje is an extremely favorable style matchup for him. If it takes more than a couple rounds for Topuria to get his hand raised, I’ll be surprised.

@Jietzsche: Does the UFC paramount stream suck in America? The picture quality sucks in Australia.

Picture quality seems fine in my experiences so far. Better and less variable than it was on ESPN+, to be honest. My complaint is that the stream freezes up or cuts out entirely too often and for too long. During UFC 326 it disappeared on me mid-fight, which is just something you can’t have in a sport where every contest can end at any moment.

@DragonDabbles: Excitement level for Diaz vs Perry on Netflix 1-10?

I’m probably a 6.5 or 7

For the fight itself, I’d say I’m about a six. The last time we saw Nate Diaz in MMA, he looked … diminished. He was never the guy who made a name by winning them all, or by having such explosive athletic ability, but everything we’ve seen from him in the last few years suggests his best years are long gone.

As for the event itself? There I’m probably an eight or nine. There’s an undeniable novelty factor. We don’t know what this thing is going to look like. These MVP events on Netflix tend to draw a much bigger audience than your typical UFC fight card, which can give us that rare feeling of being involved in the same conversation that millions of other people are having with us as it’s unfolding.

Just don’t get so excited that we forget what’s actually being offered here. Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano is probably a squash match in any era, but Rousey seems to have an even bigger advantage now since Carano has been out of the game for over 15 years. Anything other than a quick knockout win for Francis Ngannou over Philipe Lins would be a disaster for the lineal heavyweight champ. Against Perry, my guess is Diaz will again impress us with his toughness but not much else. We’re here for the sizzle, not the steak.

@DanTomMMA: If the current state of the UFC were a season of The Wire, which season would it be?

All I know for sure is that it can’t be Season 2 now that Colby Covington says he’s been frozen out, since he was obviously our Ziggy.

@bear_reynolds: What other fighters or fights would you like to see on the Netflix card?

You know one thing it’s really missing right now? A glimpse of the future. I understand why. The established names bring the eyeballs, and there aren’t many young up-and-comers who aren’t already under contract with either the UFC or PFL. But if MVP could snag someone like Gable Steveson it would go a long way toward making this feel like something other than just a walk down MMA memory lane.

@nickj812: Realised Ronda/Amanda was 10 years ago.Blimey....time flies which made me think, where do you see the level of fan knowledge & passion for MMA from then to now?

My view is that it was much easier to be engaged with the sport then at a time it seemed to know it's place

It should be just the opposite. All the UFC events are now available on Paramount+ for a pretty low (for now) monthly subscription cost, so it’s much easier to follow this sport in 2026 without being blocked by huge paywalls. Recently I’ve heard from people who considered themselves lapsed fans during the last few years of UFC pay-per-views but are getting back into it now that it’s cheaper and easier to see the good stuff. If the UFC plays it right, this absolutely should be a growth period.

My concern is that, under TKO ownership, the main focus seems to be on keeping the operating budget low. We’ve seen so many big matchups that were right there, ready to be made, and the UFC didn’t get them done. That’s not a great trend. The UFC’s whole pitch used to be that it made the fights fans wanted — unlike boxing. Lately it seems to have flipped.

As for fan passion, that naturally waxes and wanes in fight sports. I also think the average person knows more about MMA now — or at least regards it as more normal and mainstream, rather than a kooky niche of the extreme sports realm — than at any time in the last two decades.

What they don’t have a great sense of is the history beyond the last few years, because the UFC just doesn’t do much with that. You can’t sell history the same way you can sell the next event. Which is, of course, always just about to be the greatest event of all time. 'Twas always thus, and always thus shall be.

@LCombatsports: With Uncrowned adding inside boxing and netflix's upcoming MMA events, do you see that as good for the combat sports media space as far as creating jobs is concerned?

More jobs and more opportunity is always good. But I don’t know if I see a lot of other combat sports websites making the same kind of moves to expand. I hope they will, though. This space is best when it has lots of different voices.

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