The first clash between Magomed Ankalaev vs. Alex Pereira at UFC 313 was a surprising one.
First and foremost, there’s the simple fact that the collision of knockout artists didn’t produce a hugely entertaining fight or many particularly big connections. It was a low-volume kickboxing match which saw Ankalaev do most of the pressuring and ultimately score the judges’ favor, which isn’t exactly what most expected given the power of “Poatan.” The silver lining for the Brazilian, however, was that he managed to deny all of the Sambo ace’s takedowns.
In fact, Pereira came the closest of the two to a takedown with a late round foot sweep in the clinch! Otherwise, the bout was contested entirely upright.
Ahead of their rematch scheduled for the main event of UFC 320 next weekend on Oct. 4, Ankalaev has two explanations for his failure to get the wrestling going in the first fight. He admits that his training camp was less than ideal in the lead up to the first fight, but he also echoed his coach’s previous statement in claiming there was something greasy about Pereira that made wrestling difficult.
“I went through a lot when I was fighting for the title,” Ankalaev told Full Send MMA through a translator. “That training camp was terrible. I couldn’t wrestle for most of the training camp and I was battling a lot of injuries. There were a lot of reasons [I couldn’t take down Pereira]. Also, I told my coach right away during the rounds that I felt like he was greased. He was just too slippery. These things happen in professional sports. I’m not accusing him of anything but that’s what I felt. I train every day, you can feel when people are slippery, too much slippery. I felt he was greasy.”
That sure sounds like an accusation to me, “Big Ank.”
At any rate, the beef continues to heat up between Ankalaev and Pereira, so it’s hard to say if there’s genuine evidence here or simple sour grapes. With just a week until fight day, we’ll have to see if this latest bit of trash talk results in a direct confrontation as the two continue to linger in one another’s vicinity.
