Recent UFC light heavyweight champion Magomed Ankalaev is the sort of guy to make an announcement without saying anything, as was the case coming out of UFC 313.
Ankalaev claimed the 205-pound title from Alex Pereira this past Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. In a somewhat surprising performance, Ankalaev mostly ignored his wrestling while out-striking Pereira over the course of 5 rounds to earn a unanimous decision win.
Within the buildup to UFC 313, Pereira was the favored pick to win amongst UFC fighters and pundits. Now, with the victory in his pocket, Ankalaev made sure to indicate the receipts of the large names who predicted he’d lose – amongst them Israel Adesanya, Kamaru Usman, Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, Robert Whittaker, Michael Bisping, and Henry Cejudo, whom he tagged in a video on X.
“Sorry guys I dissatisfied you,” Ankalaev wrote with a smiling face emoji.
Ankalaev, 32, hasn’t lost since his UFC debut in 2018, going 14 fights and not using a defeat. His run does include one no contest (against Johnny Walker on account of an illegal knee) and one draw against Jan Blachowicz in a vacant title fight in December 2022.
It’s possible the UFC fighters Ankalaev called out will get a probability to select the Pereira fight again as Dana White said it will “probably” make sense to do a rematch after UFC 313.
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