Jon Jones has held the UFC heavyweight title for over 2 years now and he is yet to unify it, with the interim champ Tom Aspinall waiting for his title shot. The Brit is ready to take on ‘Bones’ but he claims the champ is the one holding things up. While the matter is still sub judice at this point, UFC veteran Chael Sonnen has claimed that Aspinall could be facing another world champion before fighting Jones.
That’s where Alex Pereira steps in. The Brazilian moved up to light heavyweight after suffering his first loss at middleweight, to Israel Adesanya. Since then, he has been on a roll and has since become champion, defending his belt thrice. With his next fight scheduled against Magomed Ankalaev, Sonnen sees a way for him to move up to heavyweight.
The former UFC fighter sees Pereira losing to Ankalaev being a very strong possibility, given his wrestling dominant style. And if that happens, then it opens up the opportunity for ‘Poatan’ to move up in weight and challenge for the title yet again.
So, in a recent video posted to Instagram, Uncle Chael gave fans his breakdown of the entire situation by saying, “Your most likely way is for Ankalaev to beat him (Pereira)…. Jones will not sidestep Aspinall to fight Pereira…. The Aspinall Pereira conversation is not only likely, it’s very likely gonna happen soon.”
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Despite his aspirations to fight Alex Pereira with the heavyweight title on the line, Chael Sonnen does not see ‘Bones’ ducking Tom Aspinall to make that fight happen. Sonnen claimed that the most likely scenario will be that the champ asks Aspinall to fight Pereira for the interim title, following which he will then challenge the winner of that fight.
That way, ‘Poatan’ still gets his title shot, and ‘Bones’ still gets to fight the best in the world at heavyweight. Making it a win-win situation for everyone involved. But of course, all this is dependent on Pereira’s fight this weekend against Ankalaev.
Speaking of that fight, fans will be glued to their screens to see if Pereira can successfully defend his title yet again, this time against his toughest test. ‘Poatan‘ himself is aware that this will be the toughest test of his career so far, but he claims he has a secret technique that will surprise his opponent. And while fans are eager to see what this technique will be, Sonnen is not buying it.
Sonnen calls ‘B.S.’ on Pereira’s secret technique
It is no secret that when Pereira faces Ankalaev this weekend, the Russian will put ‘Poatan’s’ wrestling skills to the test. The challenger is a wrestling dominant fighter, and that is one area that Pereira has not been able to master so far. However, the champ claims he is going to shock the world and Ankalaev himself, with his secret new technique on the ground.
Which sounds very intriguing to us as fans, but neither Sonnen, nor Cormier are ready to bite. In fact, Sonnen even said that this is a tactic Pereira got from Khalil Rountree. He explained in an episode of the Good Guy/ Bad Guy Show with Daniel Cormier –
“I feel like Pereira just grabbed the line from his former opponent and now he’s trying to give it to, ‘Oh I have a surprise for you.’ Oh let me guess, you’re gonna stretch him out, or try to choke him out, I mean there’s only so many options on the ground.”
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Even Cormier couldn’t help but agree with Sonnen. There is only so many things you can do on the ground that haven’t been done before.
Well, perhaps the surprise that Pereira is talking about is how much his ground game has improved since making the transition to MMA from kickboxing. With Glover Teixeira as his coach, the Brazilian has had a very wrestling heavy camp in preparation and in a few days, we will get to see if that would work for him or not.
