At the latest UFC tournament, the organization’s light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira made another defense of his belt. The Brazilian knocked out Jiri Prochazka in the rematch early in the second round and once again confirmed his status as the strongest light heavyweight in the league.
Let’s remember Alex’s brilliant victory:
Pereira is undefeated at light heavyweight. He came out on short notice and destroyed Prochazka.
Top contender Magomed Ankalaev doesn’t desperately disagree with this fact. The Russian fighter has been competing in the UFC for a long time, and so far he has 10 wins in his last 12 fights, one draw and one fight declared invalid. Ankalaev has been at the top of the light heavyweight division for a long time, but he can’t get a new title shot.
Magomed once fought for the vacant belt against Jan Blachowicz, but that fight, according to the judges, ended in a draw and the belt became vacant. A lot of time has passed since then, but Ankalaev never got a second title shot.
For a long time, the Russian was a very modest fighter, he did not use social media and did not get into any conflicts. Many people attributed this to the fact that the UFC did not like him: they say, Magomed is a completely media-unfriendly fighter and is not very interesting to the public, especially the American one. Apparently, Ankalaev also considered this to be the main problem and became more active in the media.
Why UFC is ignoring Ankalaev:
Why is Prohazka valued more than Ankalaev? The samurai deprived the Russian of his title
It all started after the victory over Johnny Walker. Then Ankalaev talked about his possible fight against Alex Pereira or Jamal Hill, who at that time had not yet fought each other.
“Remember this, guys: I kept my word before the fight with Johnny. And my next fight will end with a knockout before the second round. Especially if it’s Jamal Hill or the champion. I don’t need to fight for either of them. These guys have weak jaws,” Ankalaev said.
A pretty strong statement, especially for Magomed. After Pereira’s UFC 300 win over Hill, Ankalaev left another message for the Brazilian.
“Alex, congratulations. Let’s organize a fight in Abu Dhabi. I will knock you out in the first round. You have a weak chin,” Ankalaev wrote.
Interestingly, Ankalaev was offered a fight at UFC 300 with Pereira, but due to Ramadan, Magomed refused, after which for some reason he began to beg for a fight with Alex in Abu Dhabi. Both Ankalaev and his manager were sure that dictating his terms to the UFC was a great idea. But the idea turned out to be not the best, and instead of Ankalaev, Jiri Prochazka received another title fight. Magomed continued to be active on social media, trying to offend Pereira. The Russian has repeatedly expressed that as a fighter he is much better than the champion.
Alex Pereira
Photo: Ian Maule/Getty Images
“Alex Pereira has a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but no one in the world believes he can beat me, not even in the UFC. For me this will be the toughest fight of my career. But I believe I will knock him out standing,” Ankalaev wrote.
The Brazilian doesn’t pay attention to this, he continues to collect victories, and today Pereira is one of the top stars of the UFC. At the same time, Alex had several options for continuing his career: from moving to heavyweight and fighting Jon Jones to… getting into boxing. Yes, Pereira is so cool that he impressed Anthony Joshua himself with his performances: the Briton said that Alex should definitely try himself in the ring. The Brazilian’s response was not long in coming.
“I am honored that you said this. This has always been my dream. However, I am 37 years old and it is too late to start a boxing career. But who would you recommend me to fight?” Pereira replied.
Pereira could move to boxing:
“This has always been my dream.” Another UFC champion prepares to “escape” to boxing
And, of course, this situation could not have escaped Ankalaev, who again made a comment.
“It’s me against you, I’ll knock you out in the first round. You don’t need boxing, you need the biggest challenge of your life. You’re trying to get another easy payday, but what about fighting in the UFC? I mean a real fight,” Ankalaev wrote on social media.
And then Joshua himself understood.
“You are trying to get another easy check. How about you come to UFC and have a real fight?” – Ankalaev replied to Joshua.
Magomed has been appearing a lot in the media space recently. True, the trash talk he utters looks completely unnatural: as if all these posts were not written for him by the best PR manager. Magomed became very intrusive, commenting literally on every step of Pereira, hoping for a title shot. But Alex is not one of those people who can be thrown off balance by such techniques: the Brazilian answers all the questions about the fight with Ankalaev that everything depends on the UFC.
Magomed Ankalayev
Photo: Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Magomed makes too hasty statements: for example, that he will knock out Pereira in the first round and that Alex has a weak jaw. The Brazilian, unlike the Russian, cleaned up the division and left no doubt about his strength. At the same time, it is not only Pereira who understands this. For some reason, Magomed responded to Joshua, for some reason called Prokhazka small and advised him to move to middleweight. All this looks very awkward and has a negative impact on the reputation of the Russians.
Ankalaev is undoubtedly a top-level fighter and perhaps one of Pereira’s biggest challenges. But fighting Alex with the help of obsessive chatter will not work: Magomed needs to prove himself in the cage, and not on social media.
