A Valley native is ready to fight in front of friends/family when UFC debuts in Fresno

Alex Perez’s debut in the UFC comes as close to home as it can get.

UFC Fight Night 123 comes to the Save Mart Center on Saturday for the first time with 13 bouts, headlined by the featherweight fight between Cub Swanson and Brian Ortega.

Lemoore’s Perez (18-4-0) will not be on the main card, but he will fight on FS1 prelims beginning at 5 p.m. He’s set to face Carls John De Tomas (8-1-0) in a bantamweight bout.

Perez earned a UFC contract after defeating Kevin Gray on Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series at The Ultimate Fighter Gym in Las Vegas on Aug. 8.

“I felt like I deserved to be in the UFC a long time ago, but it just didn’t work out,” Perez says. “I had to work a little bit harder and it’s just great to make my UFC debut in Fresno. It’s close to home and I don’t have to fly people out to Australia or somewhere. All my friends can drive in, my mom can drive in.”

The road to the UFC for Perez began in 2011 when he made his mixed martial arts debut at the Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino. He won by technical knockout (punches) over Jesus Castro in 1 minute 56 seconds on the Tachi Palace Fights 9 – The Contenders card.

Perez fought at Tachi 13 times, the last in February when he won by submission (brabo choke) over Andrew Natividad in 2:27 of the first round.

In 2015, he won by unanimous decision over Anthony Figueroa to win the Tachi Palace 125-pound title.

“Fighting at Tachi was a great experience and one of the best regional shows around,” Perez says. “You win the Tachi title … you fight there everybody knows about it. It got me ready for the big stage and now I’m just stepping up just a little bit bigger.”

Since turning pro in 2011, Perez has three wins by knockout, five by submission (brabo, guillotine, rear naked choke or kimura). He has seven first-round finishes and is on a five-fight winning streak.

“One thing for me is I don’t make the fight harder than it has to be,” says Perez, a wrestling standout at Lemoore High and West Hills-Lemoore. “If I have to take you down and ground and pound you and try to sub you, I’ll try to do that. If I can knock you out off your feet, I’m going to try to do that. I’m not trying to go out there and get kicked in the head and take unnecessary damage. If I can finish the fight an easier way, then I’m going to do it.”

Besides his pro experience, Perez has plenty of ring experience as a three-time West Yosemite League champion while at Lemoore High and an All-American season while at West Hills-Lemoore. He was nervous every time, he says, so that part won’t be different Saturday.

“It’s always good to have nerves. I had 22 fights in MMA and wrestled over 100 matches in my career and I’ve always been nervous for those, and I didn’t care who I was wrestling or who I was fighting.”

This story was originally published December 5, 2017 at 1:40 PM with the headline "A Valley native is ready to fight in front of friends/family when UFC debuts in Fresno."