© Jerome Miron/Imagn
Perhaps the biggest fight of the year thus far in the UFC is just 48 hours away as light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira prepares to defend his crown against Russian star Magomed Ankalaev. Pereira, thus far, has mown down the division. In five fights since moving up from middleweight, he has five victories including four stoppages.
That’s exactly why former UFC star Brendan Schaub says that the company will not be an impartial bystander, but rather those in charge will be rooting for Pereira to continue his reign atop the division.
“If you don’t think the UFC brass is praying to the MMA Gods that Alex wins this fight, good lord, buddy,” he stated on The Schaub Podcast. “If Ankalaev wins this fight, you do the rematch, but maybe he’s an Achilles’ heel.”
Schaub argued that Pereira is already an established superstar, something that the UFC has struggled to create of late. He claims that the company would struggle to recreate that kind of success with Ankalaev who, while a great fighter, lacks the charisma of Pereira.
“They can’t create a star out of Ankalaev, you just can’t. Alex is your biggest star. This is his fourth title defense in under a year. … We’ve never seen anything like this. He’s also 37, so there’s not a lot of left juice in that towel to keep squeezing out.”
Ankalaev, unsurprisingly doesn’t seem things the same way. Or, at very least, he doesn’t particularly care what the company wants.
“Yeah, of course, I can understand that if he wins this fight that there’s a lot more opportunities that are opening up for him, and there’s a lot more doors that are going to be open for him as a person and as a fighter in general,” he told MMA Fighting. “But it just happened that the destiny put the two of us together and, unfortunately, he’s going to have a real tough time to get to that goal because he’s got me in front of him.”
Ultimately, Schaub may have a point. Pereira is a massive star in the traditional markets of North America and Brazil. But Ankalaev is a massive star in Russia, which is a gigantic market in its own right. So ultimately the UFC is in a can’t-lose situation so long as the duo delivers in the cage.