Alex Perez | Seeking A Dance Partner on the Other Side of the World

Between his two international business trips, Perez competed in Las Vegas, facing off with Charles Johnson on the UFC 324 prelims at T-Mobile Arena.

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It was a challenging fight for the 34-year-old veteran on a number of fronts, as he was coming off a loss to Asu Almabayev in November, was entering on the last fight of his contract, and was struggling to juggle the challenges and circumstances that come with life, not to mention the fact that he and Johnson were good friends, having trained together and lived together in the past.

While the two men spoke ahead of the contest and understood it was all business, everything else got on top of Perez a little, which contributed to his missing weight by two-and-a-half pounds, which cost him 25-percent of his purse and excluded him from being eligible to earn post-fight bonuses.

“I shot myself in the foot with some stuff, and you know how life is.” offered Perez in regard to the challenges that led to him calling his previous fight camp “the toughest of his career” in his post-fight interview after dispatching Johnson in the first round. “Actions have consequences. I messed up and had some consequences, so working through all that stuff, so it was just on the personal side, a lot of battles going on. Trying to be there as a husband, as a fighter, father, friend, brother, sibling; all that stuff and it all took a toll.

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“I didn’t feel stressed, but obviously my body did, so that’s why the weight-cut was a little rough.

“Yes and no,” continued Perez, explaining the impact of being on the final fight of his deal heading into his 2026 debut. “I always like to gamble on myself, so if you’re putting me in there on the last fight of my deal, I gotta go out there and show out? I’ll take those odds every day. It wasn’t too much on my mind — obviously, I knew going in that it was the last fight of my deal — but I didn’t feel any pressure. Every time I step out there, I gamble on myself.

“Win or lose, I’m going out there to finish, and I’m ready to go out there and put a show on; I think that’s why the UFC re-signed me: people like watching me fight because I go out there to get the job done,” he added. “Sometimes it doesn’t always go that way, but I’m grateful that it did against Charles, and now we’re here.”

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Back in the win column, Perez took a little bit of downtime before returning to the gym and the two-city approach to training that has become his routine as of late.

While he still spends a lot of time at home in California working with Colin Oyama, Giva Santana, Tyler Wombles, and Corey Beasley, the former flyweight title challenger recently purchased a second home in Las Vegas, where he tends to wrap up training camps alongside Jason Manley, Billy Bigelow, and Matheus Naccache while also taking advantage of everything the UFC Performance Institute has to offer.

This time around, the twin city team has been focused on getting ready for Sumudaerji, a fellow veteran who enters on the best run of his UFC career, having earned three straight victories to position himself on the doorstep of the rankings and looking to use this fight with Perez as his opportunity to claim a spot on the exclusive group.

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“Sumudaerji is very tough,” began Perez, offering his assessment of his opponent. “He’s a vet, he’s on a three-fight winning streak, he’s been in there, been in some dog fights; I remember watching him and Matt Schnell go at it. Seeing how he’s improved from that fight to now, he’s gotten so much better, and I’m expecting the best version of him. He’s a killer;  I’m expecting him to have the crowd behind him.

“I’m the one with the number (next to my name),” he added. “I’m the one with something to lose — he has nothing to lose — so he’s gonna come out hungry. I know when I was in that position, how I came out, and I believe he’s gonna be doing the same thing, but I’m ready for it.”

The 30-year-old “Tibetan Eagle” has taken some time to develop after arriving in the UFC towards the tail end of 2018 as a 22-year-old prospect competing in the bantamweight division. He relocated to flyweight and battled injuries and inactivity, which always limit an athlete’s growth, but he has found a home training at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento and logged three appearances in a calendar year in 2025, the first time he’d done so since reaching the UFC.

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Tall and rangy for the division, Sumudaerji has been labeled a low-output fighter by some observers, but Perez sees something different and hopes to draw him into a fight that looks less like his recent wins and more like his memorable Long Island clash with Schnell this weekend.

“He’s a sniper,” said Perez, addressing Sumudaerji’s approach. “He’s not a very high-volume guy, but he’s a sniper. He’s on the money; there is no wasted motion. My pressure, my style gives people problems, but he’s been working with Team Alpha Male, he’s got a lot of guys that fight like me; a lot of guys that can wrestle, a lot of guys that can grapple, and his grappling has gotten better.

“But to be honest, I just want to stand-and-bang with this guy,” he added with an excited laugh. “Don’t get me wrong: if I get a takedown, can get the submission, great, but I’m down to sit there and let’s bang it out; I’m Mexican, so I like to do that.”