The UFC has a new light heavyweight champion. Magomed Ankalaev had to wait a while for his luck, but he took advantage of it with a unanimous victory over Alex Pereira in the main event of the UFC 313.
But it was one of these makeshift inversions that asked as many questions as answers. Here are the biggest points to remember from the à la carte event on Saturday evening in Las Vegas.
1. Pereira waited and watched – and what he saw is that his title was moving away.
The urgency was simply not there for “Poatan”. Was it the sneaky game of Ankalaev? Was it an overabundance of concern about the threat of withdrawal? Didn’t he just have tonight, at least not the way he needed?
Maybe it was a combination of the three. The end result was that he just couldn’t press the relaxation when he needed it. There was an unusual hesitation in the game of Pereira in this fight. And when he should have known that he needed to pay him to give himself a chance in the final round, he fought as if he thought he was ahead of the dashboards.
Pereira has let him escape, and it must bite. It was always going to be a difficult test for him, but it was also like a winning fight if only he had just done more. Ankalaev launched more strikes than Pereira each round, except the first. It is not an insurmountable skills difference if it is a revenge match. But he will have to understand why this happened in this way to remedy it.
2. If you had told me that Ankalaev would go 0-12 during attempts to withdraw and would always win, I would have said that you should put your car keys back because you are clearly not fit to drive.
Coming, this is where we assumed that he had the greatest advantage. To be completely bleached by Pereira in this department and to tear off the belt anyway? Unthinkable.
Ankalaev’s struggle in this fight was more a break button than a weapon. It was a way for him to slow down the struggle and to stop any momentum, Pereira threatened to win. This worked for this purpose, even if it also earned him a shower of huae. However, he really won the fight, it was by putting pressure on Pereira in typing exchanges. He has shown no fear of the normally terrifying kickboxing game of Pereira. And, with the exception of a few scary moments late, he mainly neutralized the best weapons in Pereira.
It was not the kind of victory that added a bunch of new fans to the walking train, even if it brings another MMA title back. Ankalaev told us that the time of “Chama” was over, and he was right on this subject (for the moment). But that does not necessarily mean that too many people feel pumped “Big Ank Time.” At least not yet.
3. We are waiting for Justin Gaethje to age.
Or tired. Or to finally come to research and exhausted. It keeps not happening. Even after this direct elimination defeat against Max Holloway last year, he looked also clear as never in the unanimous victory on Saturday against Rafael Fiziev, who looked pretty good for short -term filling after knee surgery.
At 36, Gaethje should have already achieved the point of reducing yields for light weight. This is only true when you consider some of the battles in which it was. However, he always manages to be this rare fighter who always delivers pleasure favorable to fans but without sacrificing the strategy and the common sense to do so. You can put this man in a fight with a 155 pounds in the world and get something. The only question now is to know who it will be with Next.
4. The next generation of light weights has taken a step forward on the Undercard.
Mauricio Ruffy received a fight against the showcase against King Green and capitalized on her in a major way, marking a pretender with direct elimination of the year via the wheel kick. Then later Ignacio Bahamondes withdrew a START TRIANGLE START Submission on JALIN TURNERAdding his name to the list of serious fitters.
The two guys are still in their twenties, the complete image starting to concentrate. They are also in what is historically the richest division of talents in sport. The matches will not become more difficult from here, but there are reasons to think that they are both going – and may have to meet along the way.
5. One thing I did not expect to see during this event was Robbie Lawler who lost a tear.
But while they were playing his greatest successes while announcing his next enthronement to the UFC renown temple, the legendary hard -cooking had to let him out.
The place of Lawler in any temple of MMA’s fame is indisputable. But one of the most remarkable things of his incredible career was his resilience. There was a time when it seemed that it would never be nothing more than a one-dimensional coupur which was good for the occasional Knock-out but far from anything resembling grandeur.
He was shaped into a complete fighter, and did it without losing the ferocity that made him if feared in the first place. It is a good reminder that we should not assume that we have the whole book on a guy just because we saw him lose a few. Good fighters are doing the best party of the skills they have. The big ones continue to add more while becoming more intelligently on the best way to use all of this.
Seeing Lawler finally get his flowers for all of this could have made me a little misty too.
(Tattentranslate) Alex pereira
