UFC 313: Magomed Ankalaev gets his shot at being the ‘final boss’ for Alex Pereira at light heavyweight

Ever since he first made his UFC debut in 2021 following a Hall-of-Fame kickboxing career, opponents and critics alike have been waiting for Alex Pereira to be exposed on the ground. 

The problem is, outside of a few touch-and-go spots, it hasn’t really happened. In fact, Pereira (12-2), the 37-year-old Brazilian slugger who is among the UFC’s most popular stars and pound-for-pound best fighters, has only continued to make history of late with each and every breakthrough victory. 

Through just 10 trips to the Octagon, “Poatan” is 9-1 with seven knockouts, has captured titles in two divisions and just recently made three light heavyweight title defenses in a UFC-record 176 days just to prove how valuable he is to the promotion and the sport. 

As Pereira prepares for Saturday’s return headlining a UFC 313 pay-per-view card from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, however, in what could be his final 205-pound bout before an inevitable move to heavyweight (especially if UFC is unable to make a Jon Jones-Tom Aspinall unification bout), his opponent, No. 1 contender Magomed Ankalaev (19-1-1, 1 NC), has all the makings to be the toughest challenge of Pereira’s MMA career to date.

The 32-year-old Ankalaev, who grew up within the great wrestling and sambo tradition of Dagestan, Russia, has the size (6-foot-3), power, striking technique and grappling ability to be the true final boss at the end of Pereira’s light heavyweight video game. Not only has the fight been declared a virtual pick ’em by oddsmakers, there’s a belief by many (including Ankalaev) that UFC has gone out of its way to delay such a matchup. 

“It’s still a mystery to me why it is happening right now,” Ankalev, through a translator, told CBS Sports on Wednesday. “We have been waiting for this for a long time and we have been asking for this for a long time. This is something we have been ready for, for a long time. It just happened that the UFC decided it was ready to be right now.”

Save for a dramatic, third-round submission loss to Paul Craig in Ankalaev’s UFC debut in 2018, which is the lone defeat of his pro career, Ankalaev has long been seen as a future threat to the 205-pound title. Ankalaev is 11-0-1 (1 NC) since the Craig defeat and has only really struggled from the standpoint of looking exciting enough to avoid the ire of UFC CEO Dana White.  

What certainly didn’t help matters with White, or anyone else, was Ankalaev’s somewhat pedestrian performance in a 2022 split draw against Jan Blachowicz for the vacant light heavyweight title, which left him feeling villainized by both fans and White as to why the bout lacked excitement. 

Ankalaev listened to the criticism and responded with a second-round knockout of Johnny Walker before coming forward the entire bout in search of a knockout in an eventual decision win over Aleksandar Rakic in October. 

“I definitely felt that,” Ankalaev said, regarding the cold shoulder he believes he received from White. “I know that a lot of things had to change after that fight and I believe that a lot of things did change. I know I have to be very different this time around. I started working harder and I started working more. I think this time around, you will see a whole different version of me.”

The path Ankalaev has been forced to walk over the past year into the title shot wasn’t exactly an easy one, however. 

Ankalaev was forced to accept a fight against Rakic (who was riding a two-fight losing skid) last time out, despite being the top contender, while Pereira was matched against No. 7 Khalil Rountree Jr. during the same month in what was a surprising announcement. To make matters worse, UFC put the Pereira-Ankalaev fight directly in the midst of Ramadan, which the Muslim Ankalaev has observed despite being in training camp.

“The fight being during Ramadan is probably the worst part about the whole situation,” Ankalaev said. “This is the fight that has been given to us and we weren’t going to say no to it. We weren’t going to let this go. We wanted to make sure to accept this even though it presents itself a challenge.

“The hardest thing at the moment is training during Ramadan, which is a time where we have to fast. Because of that, I have had to break that [fast] a couple times because I have to go ahead and drink water. In order for me to make weight, I have to do that during Ramadan and that is probably the hardest part.” 

Simply predicting that Ankalaev’s wrestling will be too much for Pereira isn’t as easy as it sounds considering every single opponent he has faced in MMA has been aware of his inexperience and shortcomings on the ground while transitioning out of kickboxing. While a lot of the credit certainly goes to Pereira, who joined forces with trainer/mentor Glover Teixeira in the former UFC champion’s Connecticut gym, some have believed the real reason is due to matchmaking. 

Consider Ankalaev among those who subscribe to such a theory. 

“It just seems as though the UFC was kind of picking and choosing opponents for [Pereira] and kind of guiding him in a certain way, all the way to the top,” Ankalaev said. “If you look, all of his opponents were pretty much strikers who, themselves, have issues with wrestling and grappling. So, he hasn’t really had an opponent who knows how to do it. 

“You can look at Jan Blachowicz, who is not much of a wrestler himself, and he had no issue taking Pereira down and doing whatever he needs to do with him on the ground. So, we will show what we can do.”

Before we crown Ankalaev as the next champion, there has been a strong minority of non-believers who have questioned just how dominant his ground skills actually are. 

Not only has Ankalaev never submitted an opponent in 22 pro fights, he was submitted in his lone defeat by Craig. Ankalaev averages just under one takedown per bout, had zero takedowns in three of his last five fights and has been successful at only 31% of his takedown attempts overall in the UFC. 

Even Pereira, when asked last week by CBS Sports about what exactly he’s up against with Ankalaev, seemed to agree that the narrative is overstated.

“I also don’t know how good he is,” said Pereira, who is a Stake ambassador. “He honestly doesn’t show that much in the fight but everyone says he’s an amazing grappler, this and that. I don’t know. I’m excited and motivated for this fight.

“Since [his 2023 win over Blachowicz in his 205-pound debut], I’m more mature and experienced. I can’t give you a percentage of how much better I’ve gotten in striking but in grappling, I’ve worked a lot on it. It’s something I’ve seen improvement in, probably over 50% improvement.”

For Ankalaev’s sake, he has heard the same question in every single interview, which has usually amounted to, “how much do you plan to wrestle?” While Ankalaev said he doesn’t plan on immediately taking Pereira down, he does expect to “exploit all of the different aspects of Alex Pereira” and has no hesitation standing and trading with the devastating slugger. 

Anakalev, in fact, believes that Pereira wins most of his fights with intimidation, which is something he believes won’t apply against him.

“If you look at his last couple of fights, you could see that the guys coming out to fight him are immediately cautious of that left hook,” Ankalaev said. “They are afraid of it. They can’t even be themselves because they are so worried about missing that one shot so it mentally plays a number on them. 

“If you look at the very last fight against Rountree, Khalil was doing very, very good and he showed that you could outstrike Pereira. It’s not that hard of a task. It’s just that, for some reason, he started giving up position and Pereira was able to recover and take the fight afterwards. But it’s not that his striking could not be overpowered.”

Does Ankalaev represent the Kryptonite that Pereira and UFC have been avoiding all along for their star fighter? Or is Ankalaev just another over confident opponent who is set to find out the hard way just what kind of generational talent that Pereira truly is. 

We will find out on Saturday night.