Alex Pereira is calling Magomed Ankalaev a liar ahead of their UFC 320 championship rematch.
Pereira hopes to right the wrong of their first meeting at UFC 313 in March where Ankalaev captured the light
heavyweight title via unanimous decision. There’s been a lot of heat in the buildup to the fight with Pereira accusing Ankalaev of hiding from him when they were both in the UFC Performance Institute, and Pereira even showing video of a confrontation on his YouTube channel.
Ankalaev has denied that on multiple occasions and gave his side of the run-in, also.
Pereira is not only accusing Ankalaev of fabricating the story, but also of not actually writing his trash talk on social media, which he said during an open workout media scrum in Las Vegas on Monday.
“Yeah, I don’t know why he’s saying that because that’s 100 percent what happened,” Pereira said. “But that just goes to show you that it’s not him writing a line. That’s not coming from him. So what happens is somebody else, somewhere else, is writing for him, and then he comes here and he sees me.
“Maybe he thought, ‘Maybe I don’t want to face him right now. I’m alone.‘ But that’s 100 percent what happened.”
Pereira doesn’t understand where Ankalaev is coming from in terms of the negative feelings he has towards his opponent.
When asked about if things are personal from his side, “Poatan” says he has no true issue with his opponent, and that’s the way he has always been.
“I try to avoid conflict with my opponents,” Pereira said. “I even become friendly with them afterwards. You’ve seen this before, I’ve even talked about training with past opponents. I don’t really know what it is. I think he used to say, a lot, that I was running away from him, that I didn’t want to fight him. That’s never happened. We all know the UFC didn’t want to promote that fight, so that’s never what it was.
“But I have no problem with him, and I always try to be friendly and avoid conflict.”
