Alex Pereira says the UFC 'manipulated' fans into backing Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit

Alex Pereira wanted a rematch with Ciryl Gane for the UFC heavyweight title. He did not get it and now he says the promotion stacked the deck in how it sold the fight it made instead.

The fight he wanted

Gane knocked Pereira out in the second round in June to win the interim heavyweight belt on the UFC card held at the White House. Moments earlier on that same card Josh Hokit knocked out Derrick Lewis to improve to 4-0 in the UFC.

The UFC then booked Gane against Hokit for the undisputed title with Tom Aspinall still sidelined by an eye injury. They headline UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden in New York on Nov. 14.

'It was all kind of manipulated'

Pereira said in a Brazilian interview that the UFC told him it had run a poll and that Gane vs. Hokit would be the fight. He said he disagreed but went along with it because the promotion is in charge.

He then accused the UFC of using commentators and other voices with big followings to warm fans up to the matchup before it was announced. He named former two-division champion Daniel Cormier as one of them.

"It was all kind of manipulated, you know?" Pereira said. He added that he believes the UFC did everything it could to make people think it was the right fight.

The two men usually get along and even wrestle around backstage during fight weeks. Pereira still said some of what Cormier has said about Hokit just does not make sense to him.

What is next for Poatan

Pereira is a former middleweight and light heavyweight champion who is chasing a title in a third weight class. He faces Sergei Pavlovich on Dec. 12 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in the co-main event of UFC 335, which is headlined by Charles Oliveira vs. Diego Lopes.