UFC contender Alex Pereira has explained why he believes he’s next in line to face Israel Adesanya.

Ever since entering the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Alex Pereira hasn’t been shy when it comes to letting the world knows what he wants: Israel Adesanya and the UFC middleweight championship.

The two men have history dating back to their kickboxing days when the Brazilian was able to defeat Adesanya on two separate occasions - once via knockout, and once via decision.

The 35-year-old wanted to try and get to ‘The Last Stylebender’ as quickly as he possibly could and following his latest win, it feels like just a matter of time before he gets the call.

In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani, Pereira actually revealed that there’s an agreement in place for him to get that next shot following Adesanya’s triumph over Jared Cannonier.

“Well, do I have a hundred percent sure? No, because I don’t have full control of the situation. But it’s on our agreement. It’s on my deal, on my contract. We signed that the next fight, it is actually for the title.”

“Actually, Israel just said that on the ring that he wanna fight me.” Pereira said. “He have to fight me for the title next. It is on the deal. So, he not gonna go and say, ‘Oh, he gotta fight three, four, five more times when he knows that, on the paper, it is that I’m next.”

Pereira’s journey to the top

Bizarrely, it’s been just eight months since Alex Pereira announced himself on the UFC stage with a nasty TKO win at Madison Square Garden last November.

Andreas Michailidis was his victim on that particular occasion and then, back in March, he proved that he could go the distance with a nice unanimous decision win over Bruno Silva at the UFC Apex.

He took a huge step up in competition for International Fight Week at UFC 276 as he went toe-to-toe with top middleweight contender Sean Strickland.

Throughout the course of fight week it was Strickland who was doing most of the talking but in the end, the power of Pereira proved to be too much in the form of a violent knockout.

Get ready, Izzy, because he’s coming.