Alex Pereira’s biggest challenge yet
Alex Pereira has been through many challenges in his fighting career.
He’s captured two titles in kickboxing, at middleweight and light heavyweight. He’s chased down an old rival, Israel Adesanya, and took his title from him. He has won two MMA titles.
But he may be facing his biggest challenge yet: Magomed Ankalaev. Much has been put on Ankalaev as the one to dethrone Pereira once and for all. But time and time again, Alex Pereira has risen to the occasion and put many of men away.
Alex Pereira defeating challenges
Alex Pereira has gone though challenge time and time again. After knocking off Israel Adesanya in 2016, a win that would be but a blip in the sport of kickboxing, Alex Pereira took off. He lost to Artur Kyshenko and Yousri Belgaroui.
But he continued to improve. The names started to pile up.
Simon Marcus. Yousri Belgaroui. Jason Wilnis. Artem Vakhitov.
These names are houshold names in kickboxing. But it wasn’t kickboxing as the only place that Pereira had challenges to overcome.
Sean Strickland. Israel Adesanya. Jan Blachowicz. Jamahal Hill. Jiri Prochazka.
Alex Pereira took over the sport of MMA by storm. He captured his two titles. He’s stepped up on the biggest stage at UFC 300. But now, it seems as if the fans have picked Magomed Ankalaev to dethrone the UFC’s newest star.
Magomed Ankalaev’s holes
Wrestling has been what everyone thinks is the path to defeat Alex Pereira. Magomed Ankalaev has widely been seen as that fighter that will beat Pereira on the ground. Seems to make sense, right?
He’s Russian, specifically Dagestani. But much like the Brazilians of the early 2000’s, attributes have been given to Ankalaev and built a story for UFC 313.
Make no mistake about it: Magomed Ankalaev is a striker first.
It wasn’t until he was severely damaged by the low kicks of Jan Blachowicz that he began to wrestle. Then, Blachowicz was dead tired as well. The takedowns came easy. Alex Pereira has shown great patience and power deep into fights. Think about his round five knockout of Israel Adesanya or the round four knockout of Khalil Rountree.
Pereira has also been wrestled in the past. Bachowicz and Prochazka both took him down in recent years. Pereira stayed calm, started the next round and took over.
Then there’s the aforementioned low kicks that killed Ankalaev against Blachowicz. Throw in those devastating low kicks of Pereira and it’s a recipe for disaster the Russian.
This is just the next big challenge for Alex Pereira.
