Addressing the rumors: Did Pereira intentionally lose to Ankalaev?

The odds were in Alex's favor to win in UFC 313 and the world was looking for an explosive title defense against Magomed Ankalaev but what the audience got was a kind of boring fight where not a lot happened and a decision decided the world lightweight champion in UFC.

There was no doubt once we went to the judges scorecards who was going to emerge as the victor in that fight.

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I know that I personally was very disappointed in the fight because we expect something super-human from Alex Pereira every time he steps into the octagon but what we got was a rather reserved approach and a lot of leg kicks. Leg kicks are normally designed to slow down your opponent and set them up for something a lot more devastating later on, rarely have fights ever been ended because of leg kicks. In fact, the "leg kick" finishes that really stick out in most people's minds are actually the person throwing the kicks ending up breaking their own legs a la Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva.

After Alex failed to do any real damage throughout the fight due to not really throwing a great deal, the internet was always going to be awash with claims of him giving himself a reason to go for what is probably going to be the biggest money fight the UFC has ever seen in Jon Jones vs. Alex Pereira, if it was to ever happen.

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I will admit that I started thinking this a bit after the loss and there was a lot of discussion in the room I was in about precisely this.

Jones has been talking about wanting this fight to happen ever since Alex kind of burst on the scene and created a question about who the GOAT is in the sport. Jones has been hinting or just outright stating that he really wants this fight to happen and that it would be the "biggest fight in MMA history." No doubt the money that this fight could generate would be absolutely huge and even though he likely wouldn't admit it, Dana White and the UFC would probably really like this fight to happen as well because although they are likely also fight fans, they are businessmen first and money rules the day!

Pereira has been pressed about this sort of fight and he has been quite stand-offish about addressing the questions from the press and instead he pivots to talking about how he has no intention of taking a bunch of time off and is instead looking at how he can adjust his strategy for the rematch that he is guaranteed vs. Ankalaev via his fight contract.

Now there are a couple of ways that we could look at this: For one thing, it is completely unnecessary for Alex to lose the light heavyweight belt in order to fight at heavyweight vs. Jon Jones. So there goes that incentive for any of the conspiracy theorists out there. If Alex wanted to fight Jones at heavyweight or if he wanted Jones to come down to lightweight he would probably only need to express official interest in it and it would be so. He doesn't need to vacate the belt or lose it at light heavyweight in order to make this happen. UFC would almost certainly accommodate anything that either fighter needed in order to make this "superfight" happen. So I want everyone to step back on the trash talk as far as this is concerned. There is absolutely zero reason for Alex to lose the lightweight belt on purpose.

There is something else to consider here though and this is very important for Alex and his team: If he goes back to fight Ankalaev in the rematch and loses again, then the superfight with Jones kind of loses a lot of its steam since you can't really have a GOAT fight when one of the people in that equation can't even retain the belt in his own weight class. Therefore, it is very dangerous for Alex to take this rematch unless he is really intending to do whatever it takes to dominate and win that fight. A 2nd loss to the same guy makes the GOAT fight moot and basically lines it up as another stupid BMF fight.

That doesn't mean that it wont happen though and there is always a very real chance that UFC is speaking to Periera behind the scenes and telling him to release videos where he states nothing about Jones and says he is focusing only on the lightweight division.

For me personally, I would rather see Periera focus on getting that belt back rather than change weight classes just for a big payday vs. Jones. I think that despite what people might be thinking, the Jones/Pereira fight has a much greater chance at being a flop than the best event ever since both guys are going to be playing defensively or as I like to say "not trying to win, but just trying to not lose."

It is also important to look at the age factor here as well: Jones is 37 years old and Pereira is 34. I'm not saying that either of these ages are old, but there are very few fighters that get close to 40 and remain relevant. For the most part, the fighters who carry on at that age almost always end up tarnishing their legacy with losses that are bound to come along with age.
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_{Dana gives his usual non-answer to a direct question}

Basically, if this super-fight doesn't happen in the next 2 years, it is unlikely to happen at all in any sort of serious capacity. It could very well end up like the Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr boxing match where the hype was much bigger than the actual fight was.

So in the end, I don't think at all that Alex threw the fight. At this point in time though, I don't think we can trust what the UFC or Periera says in any sort of official capacity. Jones you can trust, that guy is a lunatic with no filter.