{"id":111495,"date":"2025-09-01T09:01:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/111495\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T09:01:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:01:08","slug":"ankalaev-mocks-pereira-training-footage-dont-worry-about-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/111495\/","title":{"rendered":"Ankalaev mocks Pereira training footage: \u2018Don\u2019t worry about wrestling\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re just over a month away from UFC 320<\/a> on October 4th featuring Alex Pereira attempting to win his light heavyweight belt back from Magomed Ankalaev. Pereira came up short<\/a> against Ankalaev back in March, losing a decision via 49-46, 48-47, and 48-47 scores. New footage shows \u201cPoatan\u201d leveling up his wrestling to prepare for the Dagestani fighter.<\/p>\n

That won\u2019t help, according to \u201cBig Ank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pereira crossed over from kickboxing and has always been perceived as weak on the wrestling side of things. Recent Instagram stories show him putting in the hours grappling at his gym, including one clip where he is surrounded by fresh teammates shooting endless takedowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis guy bring Punch Taxi driver to help him with Wrestling,\u201d Ankalaev wrote on X (formerly Twitter). \u201cYou don\u2019t need to worry about Wrestling I\u2019m gonna find this big head again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pereira did well enough with Ankalaev\u2019s takedowns in the first fight, stopping all twelve of his opponent\u2019s attempts. But Ankalaev used many of those takedowns to push Pereira around the cage,<\/a> control him, and land solid punches on the separation. Team \u201cPoatan\u201d undoubtedly recognizes that \u2014 they also aren\u2019t likely to show any footage from training that may show Ankalaev anything useful.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see how Pereira looks against Ankalaev in his return. He took some serious time off following the loss to heal his body,<\/a> and has alluded to a number of problems<\/a> leading into the Ankalaev fight that hindered his performance. As for Ankalaev, he\u2019s clearly feeling more confident than ever<\/a> as he comes into his first title defense.<\/p>\n

Who do you see taking this one, Maniacs? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re just over a month away from UFC 320 on October 4th featuring Alex Pereira attempting to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,702],"class_list":["post-111495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}