Alex Pereira is confident that a healthy version of him will prevail against Magomed Ankalaev.
Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) lost his light heavyweight title to Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) by unanimous decision at UFC 313 in March. It was Joe Rogan who revealed that Pereira entered the fight injured, which was later confirmed by “Poatan” and his team.
“Dealing with (losing) is not cool,” Pereira said on “The Brian Campbell Experience” through an interpreter. “But honestly, if I put together everything that was going on with me, and I’m not going to say it right now, it makes me happy that I was able to do the fight that I did with everything that was going on with me. Of course I’m not happy with the loss, but with the way that I fought, I’m actually even surprised that I was able to fight like that with everything that was going on.”
The pair run things back in Saturday’s UFC 320 (pay-per-view, FX/ESPNews/Disney+, ESPN+) main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
But just how compromised was Pereira going into the first fight?
“Honestly, I was about 40 percent for that fight, on that night,” Pereira answered. “And obviously it’s going to be much more this time. But if I’m only 50 percent, that 10 percent is going to make such a great difference. I’m going to leave no doubt for everybody.”
Ankalaev failed on all 12 of his takedown attempts against Pereira, prompting the champion to accuse him of greasing.
“I think he don’t like because I was able to prove that he’s not that good,” Pereira said. “I’m a striker, he’s a grappler. He’s supposed to be taking me down, but I was able to show to everybody that he’s not that great.”
