Chris Curtis shares how he used "good will" with UFC for potential Alex Pereira fight: "It is distressing how large this dude is"

Alex Pereira is such a foreboding presence inside the octagon that a fighter like Chris Curtis, who always gives the thumbs up to UFC bout offers, had a rare instance of giving the company a thumbs down. Speaking to Mike Bohn of MMA Junkie, 'The Action Man' touched on an interesting tidbit about how the promotion wanted him to fight with 'Poatan' early on in the Brazilian's UFC run.

This transpired, per Curtis' account, before Pereira eventually took a Bruno Silva matchup. Following up on his comments about how he doesn't usually say no to bout offers unless one's name is Alex Pereira, Curtis said:

"They offered it to us and I was like f**k no. I'm not fighting him on like; he was like it's kind of short notice. I was like there's no way because not only do I not want to fight him, I'm not doing it on short notice. Because I met him in New York at Madison Square Garden. We're in the elevator and I'm like what size are you?"

He continued:

"People who don't know Alex Pereira don't realize how big this man is in real life. Like it is distressing how large this dude is. I'm like you know what, I don't have an answer for this. So I'm just gonna say no, I'm cool. I've said yes to everything else. I'm gonna cash that good will in and say f**k no here."

Check out Curtis' backstory on turning down the Pereira fight below

---

Alex Pereira backed over Jon Jones by controversial UFC fighter

Alex Pereira is seen as someone who can be the one to topple Jon Jones inside of the octagon according to a three-time UFC title challenger and former interim champion in the promotion. Colby Covington spoke about this during a recent interview with Submission Radio where he claimed that he trained with Pereira close to a decade ago.

The 37-year-old was still actively fighting for Glory kickboxing titles at the time and per Covington's account, Pereira's mentor Glover Teixeira wanted the former interim UFC welterweight champion to teach Alex Pereira some more wrestling skills.

The native of Sao Paulo state is someone that has lethal striking and Covington mentioned how he could definitely catch Jon Jones in the stand-up department. 'Chaos' thinks 'Bones' Jones would be quick to shoot in on Pereira's legs and that the reigning UFC heavyweight champion would not engage in a striking battle against the brick-fisted knockout artist if they were ever to fight.