Ali Abdelaziz is pulling no punches on how he feels about Alex Pereira as a champion.
Pereira pulled off one of the most incredible runs in UFC history, arriving in 2021 and running up the middleweight title ladder to take the belt off Israel Adesanya. Then he jumped up a weight class and took the light heavyweight title — all in four years. Add in his panache for accepting last-minute challenges and you’ve got yourself a fan favorite.
He’s currently beltless after losing at light heavyweight to Magomed
Ankalaev — who is slightly less popular. Ankalaev’s manager says he has no chance of winning the belt back so long as “Big Ank” holds it. He also claims that “Poatan’s” run was manufactured by UFC.
“Alex Pereira was engineered,” Abdelaziz said on the Pound 4 Pound podcast. “UFC has some of the best matchmakers in the world. They have the best minds. [Ankalaev] should have been a champion three fights before [Pereira] fought for the title. It was engineered not to get [him] there ... When I got [Ankalaev] and Dana to sit in one room, everything changed.”
“I think Alex is a good fighter. I think he’s a real fighter. He’s a lion,” he added. “But in a way, Ankalaev should have been champion two, three years ago. Alex would have never been a champion. And I’ll tell you something again: if they fight again — and they will fight again probably in October — it’s going to be worse for Alex.”
“Now Ankalaev has the confidence. He understands, [Pereira] was a scary guy touching people and knocking them out, but he fought a whole bunch of mediocre strikers. None of these guys was like high level striker. Ankalaev, he can wrestle, he can grapple, and he can strike. Ankalaev is more of a striker than a grappler. And you seen, he hurt Pereira in the fight. Alex didn’t hurt him.”
Abdelaziz concluded by saying the UFC did everything they could to keep the belt out of Ankalaev’s hands — and is doing the same to another of his clients, Movsar Evloev.
“It’s Ankalaev’s time,” he said. “Hunter Campbell, Mick Maynard, all of the UFC, they was all sandbagging him. They knew he was coming, and they was praying he’d lose.”
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