Is Pereira actually a good guy?

[Takes Two To Tango]

Seems like a relatively nice guy. Pretty hospitable to his opponents outside the cage.

His biggest rival Izzy, they seem pretty cool with one another.

 

[TheMoa]

He seems and sounds all right in portuguese, but he also seems to have a surprisingly fragile ego when he's criticized. Has been in some feuds with journalists and fighters because of small shit that makes you scratch your head and wonder why is a guy in his station wasting time with petty shit, similar to Kevin Durant on twitter.
He also seems to have a terrible taste in woman, but who am I to criticize it.. I've had a handful of crazy ones over the years and they weren't throwing themselves at me like they probably do with him.


About the KO, he addressed it as normal trainning. Said it was his first training session since Ank's fight, went 8 rounds with bigger guys. Also said that he didnt put that much power in it, it was more that he dropped the guy with bodyshots before and the guy "didn't see the hook coming" and that everything was ok and he took pictures with the guy later, that dude wasnt mad. Said KOs happens in trainning sometimes, that it could be him and that sparring amateurs sometimes is trick because some guys go crazy trying to take on him to have something to brag about later. He also said he never posts KOs and always ask people if he can post trainning footage, that he wasnt the one that posted it. Said that if people saw the full sparring that he usually have with Yousri and how har they go people would think they hate each other.

 

[Hdfi]

He's most likely a good person.

Evidence:

- Helps indigenous peoples through charity and supports Pataxo activist leaders.


- Created the Poatan Institute which provides free classes (jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, computer, English - yes, English classes) for underprivileged children.


- Glover likes him (Glover is a good "filter").

 

[Brother Numsi]

Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t

I think for a lot of us, we want to believe the fighters we support are good, decent folk but the reality is, you just don’t know. A lot of fighters may brush off fans in public and some might be very approachable. All depends

Now if you hear the people close to them (family, training partners) say a fighter is a solid person then what everyone else thinks is irrelevant. But if those same people label them a scumbag, there’s probably a lot of truth there.

 

[The Bloody Nine]

Man…this is sports marketing in a nutshell. Oftentimes the real person has nothing in common the model being portrayed.

Michael Jordan became the biggest athlete in the world by a very long mile thanks to his sponsors pushing this “good guy” image. Then everyone was surprised by his hall of fame speech that seemed petty and vindictive. Same reaction when the Netflix documentary dropped. But that was the real MJ…a ferocious competitor ready to make imaginary enemies out of anyone and bully his teammates to win. Nothing wrong with being that way but man, average people and kids were being so misled.

Athletes’ performances are inspiring but it should be open book in terms of the personality it takes to win at the top levels. Nice guys often don’t win.

Same can be said with actors, politicians, musicians, etc. I think at some point, past 20 years old, the onus is on the fan to realize what is fact and fiction. Work hard to be proud of yourself, rather idolizing others. Of course, it’s much harder to do…

By "world", I take it you mean America. Jordan was never the biggest athlete in the world. It's generally a soccer player, given it's the most popular sport in the world.

 

[JPOMMA]

By "world", I take it you mean America. Jordan was never the biggest athlete in the world. It's generally a soccer player, given it's the most popular sport in the world.

Wrong. I mean “the entire world”. I went from China to Africa to Europe to the US and EVERY kid was into MJ. To the point where my travel partners in China, who looked nothing like MJ but was Black and a little tall, was getting mobbed in China. That was around 95. I can give another example where during an event in France around 91, MJ was so popular that people got crushed in the gym due to overcapacity, with 3x more people outside. It was all over the news. Or I could tell you about 92 in Barcelona when the Dream Team literally eclipsed everything else in a country that is football-mad. I could go on but you get the point. I live globally so when I say “the world”, that’s what I mean

Edit: it’s also important to understand the corporate backdrop of the time. US corporations like Nike, McDonald’s etc. needed new markets to grow as the US market was saturated. They made a big push globally, using Jordan as “ambassador” (or Trojan horse) of sorts. It was meant to push positive American values and ideals (to boost consumerism) at a time when the USSR had faded and provided no ideological opposition.