24 April 2023 , 10:40
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Former UFC champion Alex Pereira has been told to avoid a fight against Magomed Ankalaev in his move up to the light-heavyweight division.
Pereira, 35, announced he will move up to 205lb after losing his middleweight belt when Israel Adesanya knocked him out in their UFC 287 rematch earlier this month. The Brazilian weighs 230lb outside of training camp and has to cut a huge amount of weight to reach the middleweight limit, but he will now debut at light-heavyweight for his next fight.
UFC legend Daniel Cormier has advised Pereira to avoid a fight against former title challenger Ankalaev because of the Dagestani's wrestling ability. Ankalev is unbeaten in his past 10 fights and narrowly missed out on the vacant light-heavyweight belt when he fought to a split draw against Jan Blachowicz last December.
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“That’s the matchup that Alex Pereira would want to avoid," Cormier said on his YouTube channel. "I think that’s the only one at 205 that you would want to avoid right now because Ankalaev can wrestle and we saw that in the fight against Jan Blachowicz, where he took him down in the last three rounds.
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“There’s very few wrestlers at the top of the light heavyweight division, so if you are Alex Pereira, you really aren’t as concerned about going up to 205 then you might have been in the past, because there just doesn’t seem to be as many guys for you to worry about just taking you down and laying on you. I wanna see Jamahal Hill against Jiri Prochazka and Alex Pereira vs Jan Blachowicz."
Alex Pereira was knocked out by Israel Adesanya in his last fight (Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)Pereira has previously fought at light-heavyweight during his time in Glory, winning the promotion's belt at the weight class against Artem Vakhitov two years ago. 'Poatan' has several potential opponents for his next fight as all of the top-five contenders at light-heavyweight currently don't have fights lined up.
UFC boss Dana White has ruled out the possibility of Pereira fighting for the 205lb title against Jamahal Hill in his debut at the weight class. "You put him in title contention in that he has to beat somebody to even be considered in title contention. He's got to move up to 205lb and beat a real guy so that's what we're looking at right now, getting him a real guy to fight," White told Mirror Fighting and other reporters.