The UFC shocked fans and pundits alike with their fight announcement for Magomedov Anakalev. It was widely believed that Ankalev would take on Alex Pereira for the light heavyweight title. Instead, the Russian is now set to take on Aleksandar Rakic while fans and experts wonder what the UFC has in store for their golden boy ‘Poatan’.
UFC legend Daniel Cormier recently shared his thoughts on an unexpected move announced by the UFC during his podcast with Chael Sonnen.
The two men shared their thoughts on why the UFC has not booked Pereira against Anakalaev. Cormier believes that the UFC wants Ankalaev to pass another test before he can fight for the gold against one of their biggest superstars at the moment.
“I don’t know why Pereira is not fighting Anakalev right now. I don’t know why that is not happening…What the UFC is kind of saying here is that, we’ve got this star (Pereira) and we know this guy would be a real potential issue for that star. I just feel it is a very difficult matchup, possibly the hardest matchup for him in the entire division.”
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To put in in simpler terms, the UFC knows that it has a golden goose on its hands in Pereira. Therefore, they want to be able to protect that for as long as possible.
The former champion believes that Ankalaev will eventually fight Pereira and most probably beat him. Before that happens, he feels the UFC wants to make ‘Poatan’ as big a star as it possibly can.
‘DC’ feels the way for this to happen is to match up Pereira against other strikers who he is knocking out with ease and with every knockout he just becomes a bigger name.
UFC’s plans for ‘Poatan’
Prior to the fight between Ankalaev and Rakic being announced, Rizvan Magomedov of Dominance MMA talked about UFC’s plans for ‘Poatan’.
Magomedov is part of Ali Abdelaziz’s management team, who also manages fighters like lightweight champion Islam Makhachev.
In an interview, he recently said that Ankalaev would not be fighting Pereira next as the UFC has ‘other’ plans for him.
While he did not reveal what that was, it left fans wondering whether Pereira has a move up in weight class in his future.
Meanwhile, interim heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall recently suggested he wanted to take on Pereira on the same night as Jones vs Miocic with the winners fighting each other.
However, that seems too good to be true at the moment. Only time will tell what the UFC has planned for Pereira.
