UFC 320 takes place on Saturday evening in Las Vegas, headlined by the light heavyweight title rematch between Magomed Ankalaev and Alex Pereira. Ankalaev hopes to prove his victory in the first bout wasn’t a fluke, while Pereira is looking to reclaim his belt and continue on with his Hall of Fame career.
How does Ankalaev make it 2-0 against Pereira, and what does “Poatan” need to do differently this time around to get his hand raised? Let’s talk about it.
Paths to victory for Magomed Ankalaev
While Ankalaev hails from Dagestan, and has a combat sambo background, the truth is that “Big Ank” is not the traditional Dagestani fighter. He certainly can go for takedowns, but Ankalaev’s bread is buttered in the striking, which is why he averages less than one takedown per 15 minutes of fighting, on a paltry 22 percent success rate. Simply put, Ankalaev is not a great wrestler, merely a serviceable one who mixes his skills to keep opponents off-balance.
I mention that because in the first Pereira fight, Ankalaev had zero success with takedowns, attempting 12 and coming up empty. Ankalaev didn’t beat Pereira the first time because he got takedowns; he beat Poatan with a measured striking game that saw him land the biggest punches on the feet. Then, Ankalaev salted the fight away by using his failed takedown attempts to smother Pereira along the fence, control the fight, and drain the clock. It was a complete performance, if unexciting.
Big picture, Ankalaev’s plan to stunt Pereira’s offense with forward pressure, land a big shot or two, and then smother Pereira is a good plan that mitigates the former champion’s most dangerous weapons. Where Ankalaev can improve is in the tactics. Pereira’s most consistent weapon is his low calf kick, which he landed almost at will against Ankalaev, and he will almost certainly look to throw again. Ankalaev simply powered through last time, and I suppose he could try that again, but it would be better if instead he timed counters off that kick. He started doing it near the end of the first Pereira fight to some success, and he should look to that earlier this time around.
Also, Ankalaev more or less won the first fight by virtue of his clinch game, and the ability to stall out Pereira while landing small shots. I expect Pereira to be better suited to handle that this time around, so Ankalaev should look to use the clinch a bit more authoritatively as a scoring position, instead of a stalling one.
Paths to victory for Alex Pereira
As the fighter who lost the first encounter, Pereira is the one most likely to need changes heading into the rematch. Fortunately for Poatan, he doesn’t need that much.
Pereira is a finished fighter at this point in time. He’s a devastating puncher with a sharp jab and the most effective low kicks in the sport. He’s also a much better defensive wrestler than he gets credit for. On paper, that should be hugely problematic for Ankalaev, yet he struggled mightily in the first fight. Why? Effort.
Pereira has always been prone to letting fights come to him, working the low kicks and jab methodically to draw opponents into reckless attacks, where he lowers the boom. But that caught up with him against Ankalaev, who barely reacted to the calf kicks, and never rushed in, but consistently put Pereira on the back foot instead. As the fight wore on, Ankalaev started to push the issue more, and Pereira never got out of second gear, allowing “Big Ank” to sort of walk away with things at the end. Pereira can’t let that happen again.
Ankalaev is too defensively sound to simply wait for the perfect countering opportunity. Unless Ankalaev comes into this fight with a death wish, he’s going to again have a pressure-oriented, defense-first game plan, and Pereira should not try to win on the edges in that fight. Instead, take the fight to Ankalaev. I’d like to see Pereira be the one to walk Ankalaev down, and make much greater use of his jab. Ankalaev is a southpaw, and he smothered Pereira’s lead hand, leading to Poatan simply not throwing it much, but that has to change as it’s the keystone that unlocks Pereira’s bigger punches. I want to see Pereira taking the initiative more in this fight and throwing in combination, a natural counter to Ankalaev’s one-and-done tendencies as a striker.
A rematch this close to the first fight rarely has so many questions, but this one certainly feels even more enigmatic than the first fight. There are simply so many variables that it’s hard to weigh. Did Pereira look past Ankalaev? Was he hurt (Pereire claims he was 30 percent of himself)? Did his hyperactive schedule mess him up? And on Ankalaev’s side, how did Ramadan affect his preparation? Was he at his best? Now that he’s champ, will we see the champion leap?
Any one of those questions could ultimately be the determining factor in this fight, or they may not matter at all. But there are layers to this matchup that didn’t feel as present the first time around, and it’s intriguing.
I’ll be honest, I do not have a lot of confidence in who is going to win this fight. Ankalaev won the first with a professional performance that seems imminently replicable, while Pereira looked pretty terrible. That leans towards Ankalaev — especially considering Pereira also looked bad against Khalil Rountree, which is starting to suggest a decline — but then again, Ankalaev didn’t win by a lot. That first fight was very competitive, and Pereira looked bad. If he looks like true Poatan on Saturday, he should get the edge.
Moreover, while I don’t have a strong feel on who is going to win, I do have a strong feel on how it’s going to happen, which is the exact opposite of the first bout. Ankalaev is coming into this fight brimming with confidence, and I expect him to come out with more aggression. Similarly, Pereira seems particularly locked in for this fight, and I can’t see him consenting to another tepid performance where he waits around until it’s too late. I think both men are going to come out and look to assert themselves early, and that will inevitably lead to a firefight and one guy going down.
Given that, the smart money might be on Pereira as the obviously superior power puncher of the two, but Ankalaev has never been knocked out and certainly has the power to put Pereira down. So even though I think it’s a coin flip, I’m siding with Ankalaev.
Magomed Ankalaev def. Alex Pereira by KO (punch) — 2:37, Round 2
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