Alex Pereira has remained relatively quiet since losing his light heavyweight title earlier this year.
In the meantime, Magomed Ankalaev has claimed that Pereira isn’t coming back with the champion stating that he’s agreed to face the Brazilian in a rematch on several occasions.
The current champion went as far as suggesting that they may move on from running the fight back with Ankalaev setting Pereira a deadline.
‘Poatan’ was in attendance on June 7 for UFC 316 in Newark, New Jersey where he was able to respond to some of his former opponent’s recent comments ahead of their rematch.
Alex Pereira expects Magomed Ankalaev rematch to take place later in the year which suits him better
Backstage at UFC 316, Alex Pereira spoke in an interview with UFC Brasil about his rematch with Magomed Ankalaev.
‘Poatan’ said that while he has heard some of the things that the current champion has been saying, he has chosen not to retaliate.
In his opinion, Ankalaev is only talking to try and promote himself with Pereira believing that his former opponent’s stock hasn’t climbed since he won the title.
“He’s also promoting a little if he says my name because no one knows he’s the champion. So if he says my name, he appears a little, but I’m not responding to his provocations because I know it’s just to promote. When the time is right, I’ll talk.”
Ankalaev previously claimed that he had been offered to fight Pereira in June, July and August but the Brazilian turned these dates down.
The former champion addressed this in his interview, stating that he believes the fight will happen later than that, though there haven’t been any concrete plans put in place at this moment.
Pereira seemingly supported Ankalaev’s claims about him not wanting to fight that soon, adding that the rematch being later in the year suits him better because he’s taken some time off to recover from his busy schedule as a champion.
“We haven’t talked about it yet but we know that it’s around October. It could be September, October, November.”
Alex Pereira doesn’t believe that he needs to make any drastic changes for Magomed Ankalaev rematch
While two judges had Alex Pereira winning two rounds against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313, it was clear that the defending champion wasn’t at his best on that night.
The Russian certainly deserves a lot of credit for that with Ankalaev putting in a fine performance as the challenger to finally win UFC gold.
For Pereira, he doesn’t believe that he needs to completely tear up his approach and rebuild from scratch ahead of their rematch.
He told UFC Brasil that it’s the small adjustments that will make the difference for him the second time around.
“No, some things are different but I’m telling you that these are details. It’s not something that I will have to retrain and change my game. It’s the same thing, just correcting some techniques.”
