clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Highlights: Alex Pereira’s sister, Aline Pereira, loses professional MMA debut at LFA 147

The UFC middleweight champion’s little sister hit a roadbump in her transition to mixed martial arts (MMA), losing her debut fight to Helen Peralta via decision.

Glory Kickboxing

As if Alex Pereira’s move from kickboxing to mixed martial arts (MMA) hasn’t been terrifying enough, his sister was coming right behind him promising more violence.

Aline Pereira has been developing a name for herself on the international kickboxing circuit, going 6-2 over her five years of competition. With her brother achieving so much success in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), she decided to cross over herself and see if her skills translated. And while she had her moments in her MMA debut at LFA 147, she ended up losing a decision to the 5-3 (8-1 amateur) Helen Peralta.

Peralta has contested the majority of her professional career in Invicta FC with some side-forays into bareknuckle boxing, where she is perfect (2-0). So, Aline was up against stiff competition for her first MMA fight. That didn’t stop the younger Pereira sibling from managing to knock down her opponent in the second round. Unfortunately, she found herself knocked down in the third round, and would be out-pointed on the scorecards.

Watch some highlights here:

“I’ve been following my brother’s footsteps since the beginning,” Aline said in an interview leading up to her LFA fight. “I [sign with] every promotion he fights, I go after him everywhere he goes, so [the transition to MMA] happened naturally. I already knew that I would also follow him if he went to MMA. Right now I’m focused only on MMA because you can’t focus on doing both, fighting kickboxing and then MMA. You have to focus on only one of them to get to your goal.”

Pereira — UFC’s new Middleweight champion — was in his sister Aline’s corner to help her with her MMA debut, but it wasn’t quite enough to overcome this stiff first test in the cage. However, she definitely looked good considering how little time she’s spent in MMA, and her kickboxing skills were on display and already paying dividends. We’ve got a feeling the 32-year-old Aline may indeed follow her brother into UFC with another year or two of hard work and training.

Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for the MMA Mania Daily Roundup newsletter!

A daily roundup of all your fighting news from MMA Mania