Pros Give Their Take On Magomed Ankalaev Vs. Alex Pereira – ‘He’s Got His Number’
The highly anticipated light heavyweight championship rematch between Magomed Ankalaev and Alex Pereira takes place at UFC 320, as pros gave their predictions.
Ankalaev defends his title, which he acquired after beating Pereira via a unanimous decision at UFC 313. The result handed Pereira his first loss at the weight class. Ankalaev’s team accused Pereira of “greasing” to evade takedowns, a claim that Pereira vehemently denied. Since then, the trash talk has continued. Pereira has stated his confidence in winning the second bout, suggesting that a trilogy will be unnecessary. The winner will likely face Carlos Ulberg next, who stopped Dominick Reyes in his last fight. Here is how MMA pros saw the fight playing out.
Predictions
“I wasn’t sure if he would do that, to be honest, but he did it perfectly. Alex Pereira’s run is done as a champion for now, in my opinion. Immediate rematch? Alex Pereira is a massive, massive, massive star in this sport of MMA. He lost his title, but the run that he has been on is warranted an immediate rematch in my opinion. Magomed Ankalaev, to me, looks like he’s got his number. It looks like the same thing could happen again, in my opinion,” Tom Aspinall
“A lot of pressure on Alex Pereira coming into this one. And you know, after he lost the fight to Magomed Ankalaev last time out, there wasn’t much volume. There wasn’t much wrestling either. If anything, Magomed beat him on the feet. It was just a hesitant, tentative performance from Pereira.
“I’ve been there; I know what it feels like. And yes, Magomed, even though he’s from Dagestan, isn’t a Khabib-level wrestler or is an Islam Makhachev or something like that, but he does have wrestling in his back pocket. He beat him at his own game. But Pereira is under a lot of pressure here. He’s got to come out. He’s got to be aggressive. He’s got to go forward if he’s going to get that belt back and get some pride back. He’s got to win this fight because if he doesn’t, this might be the last time we see him fight in the UFC,” Michael Bisping
“You got to want to see it twice. Do you want to see the fight two more times? Will you come out and support and watch and be into the fight two more times? Because if Pereira wins, that’s the only honorable thing to do, right? You got to settle the score. Pereira knows this better than anybody,” Chael Sonnen
“Some adjustments that Pereira can make to where he can become a, uh, where he can make himself more of a headache and, uh, give Ankalaev more problems. Um, mainly in the kicks. I believe if Pereira comes out and he’s more kick-heavy, and he’s, so he works behind his kicks more and puts more emphasis on landing kicks, I believe that. I believe that it can switch up the fight a little bit. We just need a little bit different of a show,” Caio Borralho
Full Card
Light Heavyweight: Magomed Ankalaev vs. Alex Pereira
Bantamweight: Merab Dvalishvili (c) vs. Cory Sandhagen
Light Heavyweight: Jiří Procházka vs. Khalil Rountree Jr.
Featherweight: Josh Emmett vs. Youssef Zalal
Middleweight: Abusupiyan Magomedov vs. Joe Pyfer
Prelims
Middleweight: Ateba Abega Gautier vs. Osman Diaz
Middleweight: Edmen Shahbazyan vs. André Muniz
Bantamweight: Chris Gutiérrez vs. Farid Basharat
Women’s Bantamweight: Macy Chiasson vs. Yana Santos
Bantamweight: Patchy Mix vs. Jakub Wikłacz
Women’s Flyweight: Veronica Hardy vs. Brogan Walker
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