Magomed Ankalaev may be the UFC light heavyweight champion but that doesn\u2019t mean the Las Vegas crowd is on his side.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the first defense of his title at UFC 320, Ankalaev received an overwhelming chorus of boos after hitting the scale at the ceremonial weigh-ins where he faced off with Alex Pereira just 24 hours away from throwing down for a second time. In their first encounter, Ankalaev never allowed Pereira to get much going on the feet and he ultimately delivered a unanimous decision victory to become champion.<\/p>\n
Ankalaev promised even more of the same and vowed all of the people cheering Pereira\u2019s name are going to be awfully sad come Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe words are over,\u201d Ankalaev shouted to the crowd. \u201cAll of these people tomorrow are going to cry!\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Pereira, who was dressed in full ceremonial attire including the war paint he always wears before a fight, and he was stoic while staring down Ankalaev. The bad blood between these two athletes has ratcheted up in recent weeks and Pereira is clearly excited for the chance to avenge his past loss to Ankalaev with hopes of reclaiming the UFC light heavyweight title in the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got only one thing to say,\u201d Pereira said to the crowd. \u201cThis guy\u2019s going to pay for everything he said and everything that people said in his name. He can\u2019t hide no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ferocious rivalry between Ankalaev and Pereira has both of them looking ready to fight immediately but the co-main event was carrying a slightly different energy.<\/p>\n
Following a long road traveled to get to a title shot, Cory Sandhagen looks to cash in and finally realize his dream to become champion. Obviously he aims to win the belt but Sandhagen was also quick to point out that he wants the accolades that come along with beating somebody as accomplished and revered as reigning UFC bantamweight king Merab Dvalishvili.<\/p>\n
\u201cMerab deserves all the respect in the world but everybody keep that same energy that you\u2019ve been talking all week where Merab\u2019s the GOAT and that he\u2019s unbeatable,\u201d Sandhagen said. \u201cKeep that energy because I want you guys to talk about all of that on Sunday after I beat this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dvalishvili kept things simple in response as he gears up for his third title defense already in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just ready,\u201d Dvalishvili said. \u201cMy goal is to knock him out but of course, I\u2019m ready for whatever. I\u2019m winning tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
UFC 320 goes down Saturday night with the main card kicking off on ESPN+ pay-per-view starting at 10 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev may be the UFC light heavyweight champion but that doesn\u2019t mean the Las Vegas crowd is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702,3194],"class_list":{"0":"post-188850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188850","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=188850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}