Alex Pereira reached almost super-heroic heights with his monumental run through the light heavyweight division that included five straight wins, four consecutive knockouts in title fights, and four victories over former champions. But like so many superstars before him, the Brazilian eventually had to come crashing back down to Earth and that happened over five rounds spent in the octagon with Magomed Ankalaev this past Saturday night at UFC 313.
While far from a bad performance considering how closely the fight was contested, Pereira seemingly struggled to pull the trigger, and he spent a large part of his 25 minutes in the octagon getting walked down and controlled by Ankalaev, who actually didn’t score a single takedown. It was ultimately a very smart strategy employed by Ankalaev and it exposed a few weaknesses in the almost invincible aura that Pereira built at 205 pounds but losing doesn’t necessarily mean that the now former champion has been figured out.
“I don’t think exposed is the right word, but I think it humanized him,” UFC legend Matt Brown said about Pereira on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Because he was living off all this hype. The UFC is masterful of hyping guys up. I think all of us, and it’s hard for anybody or astute followers of the game like me or you or fighters that understand all the intricacies of this, it’s hard for us to ignore the amount of hype people put into him. They do this all the time.
“They did it with Conor [McGregor], they did it with Ronda [Rousey], they do it with Alex. It’s a constant thing. Jon Jones is the only guy that’s kind of lived up to that, and I say kind of because he lost to [Dominick] Reyes. He had some close fights, but he’s kind of the only guy who really just lived up to that hype and not lost.”
Because Pereira marched through all of his title fights since moving to light heavyweight, it’s almost forgotten that he actually faced adversity earlier in his UFC career — most notably when he got knocked out by Israel Adesanya before moving to a new division.
But Brown is quick to point out that what happened to Pereira in his fight against Ankalaev happens to virtually every great champion in the UFC at some point or another.
“This sport, this is what happens,” Brown said. “You become humanized if you keep fighting. Exposed, I wouldn’t necessarily say exposed because Ankalaev didn’t get the takedown. Had he taken him down and beaten the shit out of him on the ground, OK he got exposed. We know very clearly what it is now but he defended his takedowns very well. Even did a lot of damage while being pushed against the cage.
“So I just think exposed is the wrong word, but I do think suddenly this hype train of Pereira has come to maybe not a halt but it’s slowed down a lot. He’s still a great fighter. He’s still everything we thought he was but the UFC kind of overplayed their cards.”
While it was a disappointing night for Pereira, he might get the chance to rectify that in his next fight with UFC CEO Dana White already teasing an immediate rematch.
The light heavyweight division doesn’t have a clear cut No. 1 contender and Pereira was a three-time defending champion before Ankalaev dethroned him.
The loss at UFC 313 definitely stings but Brown believes there’s a positive that can come from this, especially if Pereira’s able to build an even bigger rivalry with Ankalaev ahead of the rematch.
“This is the age of short attention spans,” Brown said. “Everybody’s going to forget about it. The next fight will sell very big. Everybody’s going to forget it was a crazy boring fight. I didn’t find it quite as boring as everyone else. I was interested in the tactics, and the strategies that they were using. I was surprised actually at how little wrestling Ankalaev went for, how much he stood with him, I thought he would push for it a lot harder.
“If the UFC could spin that [rivalry], it could be really, really big for Alex. Because now he’s actually the first guy in combat sports history that I could think of that could have two main major rivals to build the star power [after already fighting Adesanya].”
If there’s a downside to this scenario it’s that Pereira is about to turn 38 years old and a second loss to Ankalaev could be devastating to his future endeavors.
Losing two fights doesn’t necessarily doom Pereira’s potential to put on entertaining fights and deliver a few more highlight-reel knockouts, but suffering back-to-back losses to Ankalaev definitely damages his brand.
When it comes to drawing power in the UFC, that’s possibly even more valuable than gold.
“I don’t think it’s do or die but in terms of his star power, it may be a do or die for him to be as big of a star as he is,” Brown said. “If he goes out there and loses again to Ankalaev in a rematch … it’s not even do or die but his star power goes so exponentially higher if he goes out and works Ankalaev. He goes out there, and puts a beating on him, his star power goes through the f*cking roof again. He’s back at the top-top.
“If he loses, it’s not [that he’s dead], you’re not going to fight Jon Jones or [Tom] Aspinall probably. Maybe you retire. Who knows where his mind is but if you want another title shot, you’ve got to work your way back up, buddy.”
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio
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