Magomed Ankalaev wants to settle his business with Alex Pereira.
“Big Ank” beat Pereira for the light heavyweight strap at UFC 313, but was unable to defend it against “Poatan” in their UFC 320 rematch. The Brazilian later vacated his title to chase a third belt at 265 pounds, only to come up short against Ciryl Gane at UFC White House.
Pereira will remain at heavyweight to fight Sergei Pavlovich at UFC 335 in Las Vegas.
“His business with me isn’t settled at all,” Ankalaev told Bostanov. “You could
call what happened a lucky punch. That’s how he beat me. I think they knew I had some kind of injury. I don’t think any fighter had ever rushed at me like that before. If he hadn’t known I was injured, I don’t think it would have ended so quickly. We wanted Pereira and I wanted that rematch. I am doing a lot to get that fight, we even said that even if it’s in the heavyweight division, we can make it happen.”
Pereira may wind up coming to him with a second straight loss at heavyweight.
The light heavyweight title would eventually find the waist of Carlos Ulberg, who stopped Jiri Prochazka on one knee at UFC 327. As for Ankalaev, he was able to slug his way back into the win column by capturing a technical knockout victory over Bogdan Guskov at UFC Abu Dhabi last July.
As of this writing, Ankalaev remains unbooked.
