Jamahal Hill feels pretty good about his Alex Pereira vs. Magomed Ankalaev prediction after the fact.
Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) defeated Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) by unanimous decision to become light heavyweight champion in Saturday’s UFC 313 main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Hill was one of the few fighters to pick Ankalaev to win.
Not only did Hill pick Ankalaev to win, but he saw him having success on the feet, which had many accusing him of being salty for getting knocked out by Pereira at UFC 300.
“I’m going to toot my own horn on this,” Hill said on his YouTube channel. “I did my breakdown. I felt like I did a really good breakdown, breaking down each side, gave my unbiased opinion of what I saw from everything – and it turned out to be right. Everybody called me a hater, said I was hating and all these other things, which is like crazy.”
Hill saw no controversy with the result. He scored it four rounds to one in favor of Ankalaev.
“I feel Magomed did enough to win,” Hill said. “Pereira had small moments. There was no real big moment. What moment was there where he actually landed his shot, and it had its effect? Whenever Magomed hit him on the couple of instances where he was able to time a counter and hit Pereira and knock him backwards. We didn’t see many of those. Plus Pereira wore the damage a little bit more on his face than Ankalaev did.”
Hill concluded by rubbishing the notion that he was rooting against Pereira.
“Like I was saying, I was right, ya’ll was wrong,” Hill said. “People have asked me if I’m happy Alex lost. No, I’m not happy that Alex lost. I mean, I didn’t really care one way or the other. Alex is a big star, he brings a lot of attention to our division, so we all gain something from him being the champion. It’s now Ankalaev’s turn to try and build that star before I get up there and put these things (knuckles) on him.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.
