Alex Pereira doesn’t have time for Magomed Ankalaev or his coaches’ nonsense.
This weekend, Pereira rematches Ankalaev in the main event of 320, attempting to reclaim the light heavyweight title he lost to Ankalaev earlier this year. In the lead-up to the fight, Ankalaev and his team have repeatedly taken shots at “Poatan.” Most recently, Ankalaev’s coach, Sukhrab Magomedov, claimed Pereira — one of the sport’s premier knockout artists — doesn’t hit that hard. But Poatan isn’t paying him any attention.
“For sure it’s just talk,” Periera told reporters at a pre-fight scrum on Tuesday. “He saw it in my fight with Ankalaev, but he also saw it in all the other fights. Even the ref said that in 30 years he’s never seen anything like it. But that’s good. Let him think that. He’ll be in for a surprise.
“When those videos come out, I skip through it. I don’t watch the other guy. I don’t watch any of his stuff. I watch what I’m doing. I’ll watch my fight with him, but I don’t want to hear about what he’s doing. I don’t want to see what he’s doing.”
Things have gotten increasingly heated between Ankalaev and Pereira as the fight has gotten closer. Aside from the trash talk, the two nearly had a confrontation at the UFC Performance Institute last week. But despite the animosity brewing, Pereira says this is not the biggest fight of his career. Poatan maintains that his win over Israel Adesanya remains the highlight of his career, even if he beats Ankalaev in their rematch.
“I don’t think [it will be the more satisfying],” Pereira said when asked about beating Ankalaev. “Nothing compares to that win over Adesanya, with the whole history in kickboxing, everything that I went through. A lot of people think sometimes to promote a fight, you’ve just got to say a lot of things and have this animosity, and that’s not what it is. You’ve got to have that history, that background, and so [Ankalaev] is doing it all wrong.”
Should Pereira defeat Ankalaev and reclaim the light heavyweight title, he will join Randy Couture as the only two-division champion who also had multiple title reigns. And he may be looking to add on to that. Pereira has already teased a move to heavyweight before, and in the midst of his weight cut for UFC 320, Poatan acknowledged he doesn’t have much time left at 205 pounds.
“I really don’t know. We’ll have to see,” Pereira said when asked about moving up to heavyweight. “Obviously, my body gets heavier. I don’t know how long I can cut to 205. We’re just going to have to see and take it fight by fight.”
