Daniel Cormier (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)
Why isn’t Alex Pereira defending his UFC light heavyweight title against Magomed Ankalaev?
That’s a question I asked myself last weekend when the epic main card of UFC 308 was announced and the No. 1 205-pound title contender went down in a fight with No. 5 Aleksandr Rakic.
It’s a bit of a matchup that former two-division champion and current UFC analyst Daniel Cormier initially questioned. On recent episode of Good Guy, Bad Guy with Chael Sonnen, Cormier was asked why Pereira isn’t fighting Ankalaev.
“Can I be honest with you?” Cormier asked rhetorically. “I think that’s it, and I don’t know why Pereira doesn’t fight Ankalaev. I don’t know why this isn’t happening. What I like is that now Ankalaev has to pass another test. Because what the UFC is saying here is that we have this star. And we know this guy right here could be a real potential issue for this star. They will fight eventually, but they will fight when we have no choice. And I like it. I like it.”
Is Cormier right? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t say I like it, and I’d venture to say most people in the MMA community wouldn’t either. Still, it’s hard to argue with Cormier’s logic.
Unless Pereira is injured or needs rest after a busy 2024 that saw him defeat Jamahal Hill at UFC 300 in April and return to the Octagon to destroy Jiri Prochazka in June at UFC 302, it looks like his next fight Ankalaev should have been for the title.
Is the UFC protecting Pereira?
“I don’t think you’re in danger yet,” Cormier said. “And I’m not saying Pereira can’t fight or beat Ankalaev. I just feel like it’s a very tough matchup, maybe the toughest matchup for him in the entire light heavyweight division. So I think he needs to wait right or you’re going to bring him with someone else right now who is aggressive. Because all these strikers are just hitting left and right, and every time he does that, Chael, his star shines brighter. So maybe that’s the case with Alex Pereira, but I’m very rarely surprised when matches are announced. But I remember sitting in Manchester and they said UFC 308, and when I saw Rakic face Ankalaev, my jaw dropped. I was like, they really did. Like sometimes you had to protect that golden goose a little bit and that’s how you feel.”
Here’s a look at the entire episode:
One thing that has made MMA, and specifically the UFC, more exciting than boxing over the past two decades is the predictable nature of the fights.
The best fighters fight each other, and it was a pretty simple idea. If the UFC is throwing obstacles at Ankalaev in hopes that he will stumble and allow Pereira to avoid the match, that doesn’t make much sense to me.
However, they likely don’t give Rakic much of a chance to defeat Ankalaev, so the fight at UFC 308 could make the inevitable title challenge to Pereira a little more exciting.
Perhaps the vision is for a victorious Ankalaev to invite Pereira to the Octagon to set up a huge pay-per-view in the first quarter of 2025. Let’s hope it goes that way.
