Pereira insists he wasn’t the one refusing to fight Ankalaev, but he may now after all the disrespect from the Russian fighter and his manager.
Alex Pereira says he had nothing to do with Magomed Ankalaev being passed over for a light heavyweight title shot recently. But if Ankalaev is going to blame him for it anyway, “Poatan” suggested he may make it harder for the Russian to fight him.
That news came via a recent interview with Ariel Helwani where the subject of his next fight came up. Pereira had said after UFC 307 that he might take a longer break. ‘Longer’ is a relative term, though, and for Alex that apparently means around five months.
“I’d like to fight around March,” he said through his translator. “Honestly if it was up to me I’d fight in December, right now. But the problem is these last two fights happened early and we had a lot of appearances, trips, business to do that we had to push until after these fights. The guys that organized them understood, but we have some obligations to do, so I feel like March is a good date.”
Alex Pereira isn’t a fan of Magomed Ankalaev’s trash talk
“It’s not up to me… the organization doesn’t want to make the fight.
But now because they keep disrespecting, maybe I’ll make it even harder for them to fight me.”
@arielhelwani #HelwaniShow pic.twitter.com/VtTQhi1LdR
— Championship Rounds (@ChampRDS) October 17, 2024
Pereira refused to pick a specific opponent he’d like to face, but admitted recent comments from No. 2 ranked light heavyweight Magomed Ankalaev have soured him somewhat on that match-up.
“I don’t have nobody in my mind,” he said. “The organization came with Khalil [Rountree] last time, and it was a surprise for me too. I don’t really choose opponents.”
“Some people say Ankalaev, but I’m going to be honest with you,” Pereira continued. “Him and his manager have been talking a lot of crap, saying that I don’t want to fight, this and that. The reality is the organization don’t want him to fight because he’s boring. People don’t like to watch him fight. He’s not a guy that sells pay-per-views… It’s not up to me, it’s the organization. The organization don’t want to make the fight.”
“But now? Because they keep saying that disrespecting, maybe I’ll make it a little bit even harder for them to fight me.”
Ankalaev is on a 10-fight unbeaten streak and is the highest ranked opponent Poatan hasn’t faced. That should earn him the next title shot. But a dreadful split draw against Jan Blachowicz in 2022 followed by a bizarre near-DQ against Johnny Walker in Abu Dhabi have clearly not earned him Dana White privilege. He’ll have another chance to get back in the UFC’s good books when he fights Aleksandar Rakic at UFC 308 on October 26th.
Will an impressive win be enough to get Pereira to say “Chama?” Maybe yes … unless the UFC has something much bigger in mind.