“I had to sacrifice my family, many friends and a good life, but thank goodness I got this for all who believed in me,” Pereira said. “I had to suffer a lot to get here; I had to leave my mother, my brothers, my family for a dream, and here I am. If I could go back in time I wouldn’t do it all over again because I suffered so much to get here.”

Luckily for us, Pereira doesn’t have to go back in time, because we’ve got him now, and after making the viral rounds for his highlight reel moves and knockouts, he did the same thing in the UFC, as he knocked out British veteran Danny Roberts in less than two minutes in May. If there were any first-time UFC jitters, they weren’t anywhere to be seen in Pereira’s performance.

“I am young, but I have many fights and I am very experienced,” he said. “So, for me, it was just one more fight. I was super trained, and God was with me. I was realizing my biggest dream and knew it was my time.”

By the time the fight was over, fans around the globe knew who Pereira was and they wanted more. That reaction was satisfying for a fighter whose unorthodox style wasn’t always as positively accepted.

UFC Fight Night airs live on ESPN+.

Fighting at home in Brazil for the first time in over a year, Souza has finished his last six victories and he has similar plans for Poland’s Blachowicz, who is fresh from a stunning knockout victory over Luke Rockhold.

Marcin Tybura (257.5) vs Augusto Sakai (258)

Cole Smith (135) vs Miles Johns (135.5)

Brad Katona (135) vs Hunter Azure (135.5)

Chas Skelly (146) vs Jordan Griffin (145)

Louis Smolka (135) vs Ryan MacDonald (135.5)

Kyle Prepolec (155) vs Austin Hubbard (156)

*Michel Pereira weighed in over the welterweight limit and will forfeit 20% of his purse to his opponent. Fight will proceed as scheduled.

The Rebels went through different strength-and-conditioning circuits as well as grappling and striking practice, which took them away from the monotony of preseason preparation.

“I think this is a great experience for us,” junior guard Amauri Hardy said. “(It) allows us not only to get away from our facility, but allows us to be a family together, amongst each other (and) do something that we’re not really usually used to doing, and I think this is something great for us. Learning different skills, using different parts of our bodies and being able to do something like this, day in, day out, it’s just a nice facility. It’s something great for us.”

Switching things up not only helps the team psychologically, but it also helps the body acclimate to moving in ways it usually doesn’t, according to Griffin. While his main focus is making sure the athletes don’t get hurt, the team benefits from stretching themselves in ways are not normal for a basketball player.

“For sure there’s a bit of jitters, but I felt like the only ones that were bringing the jitters were most of the media guys,” he laughs. “They’re saying, ‘Why aren’t you nervous,’ ‘You should be nervous,’ ‘Everyone’s nervous in your situation,’ and I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m all good.’ I have the mentality that you only live once, so why not do anything that scares you and do it all. What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? The world’s gonna keep going and keep spinning tomorrow. Just go out there and fight and have fun and that’s the whole point.”

Smith had plenty of fun in defeating Gagnon to move to 7-0 as a pro, but more than just the victory, it was the reality that he was finally where he wanted to be. So what’s there to be nervous about then?

“One thing that I really embraced was the fact that I’m in the UFC now,” Smith said. “I’ve made it, I’m fighting with the best fighters in the world. Locally, I felt there was a little bit more pressure just because you can’t lose to the locals and you can’t lose a round to the locals. You have to dominate the locals if you want to get to the UFC. You need to be the best local. So all of my fights here, it was like, ‘Okay man, you really need to beat these guys. It can’t be close, it can’t have a couple close rounds; you need to wipe these guys out.’ So I felt there was a lot more pressure on me to perform. And now that I’m in the show, the fighters are so good, it is what it is, so I figured that helped me a little bit.”

More UFC Vancouver: On The Rise | Public Events Schedule | Brad Katona Is On A New Level | Watch Cowboy vs Gaethje on ESPN+ | Fight By Fight Preview

With all that out of the way, Smith can now focus on the present and future, and the future gets brighter if he takes out fellow unbeaten Johns in the present. But regardless of the result, the stock of both bantamweights should rise simply because they took a fight that you would rarely see take place in a boxing ring. In other words, you don’t see two unbeaten prospects meeting this early on in their careers because there are too many records built to 20-0, 30-0, 40-0 in the sweet science.

“That would never happen in MMA,” said Smith of built-up records. “Every fight is tough, there’s way too many ways to lose, and it’s too hard of a sport. I appreciate the challenge in every fight, and here in Vancouver and in BC, we don’t get easy fights. Every fight is tough and they’re few and far between, so you can’t pad your record out here. It’s a little bit harder to do that.”