Been training BJJ since 2007. I know what I'm seeing when I see someone grapple. Alex doesn't submit people. He doesn't sweep people. He doesnt set traps. He doesn't chain submissions. He's a survivalist who plays defense and looks to stall or get back up. He looked lost on the ground with Izzy in the first fight and was nearly submitted by Jan. His grappling wouldn't cut it in the previous eras of LHW where almost every elite fighter had good wrestling , crushing top games and strong GnP. He'd get violated by them.
To me, I think you're just being a bit biased towards guys who have an offensive BJJ game.
Very reminiscent of what people did towards Conor early on, who similarly focused primarily on position, defense and getting back to his feet.
I think if you've been training that long, the take is a bit questionable, or perhaps you need to go watch those fights again.
Not much really happened against Izzy, he just focused on defense, turtling and holding on until the end of the round. Izzy himself is a purple belt under Andre Galvao, people act like he's a bum on the ground and for Izzy to have any success shows that Poatan is as well. Which is just a weak take.
Against Jan, he visibly improved exponentially, defended everything very well. About as well as you can do in that situation, mitigated damage, controlled wrists, protected his neck well, reversed position several times. Basically nothing Jan did was effective and ended up with Pereira on his feet again. Jan himself is a black belt who's been training Jiu Jitsu for 15+ years. He did better than Izzy on the ground.
When you say he almost got submitted by Jan, that takes away a lot of credibility from your opinion, because at no point was he even close to getting submitted.
Overall, It seems like you're biased towards guys who are more offensively based. A lot of MMA fighters train this sort of style which focuses on position, defense and getting back to the feet.
Chuck Liddell has been in his camps, so it's not surprising that's what he's focused on, it makes the most sense for his style.
You can't really project what takes place in a Jiu Jitsu gym into a fight. It's a different game.