Robert Whittaker spells early trouble for Magomed Ankalaev if he doesn’t wrestle Alex Pereira at UFC 313.
Ankalaev (20-1-1 MMA, 11-1-1 UFC) challenges light heavyweight champion Pereira (12-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) in Saturday’s headliner at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPNews/Disney+, ESPN+).
Ankalaev is confident that he can stand with “Poatan,” but Whittaker thinks that would be a costly mistake. Not only does he urge Ankalaev to wrestle, but he urges him to do it early. Pereira has won all four of his light heavyweight title bouts by knockout.
“If I’m coaching Ankalaev, I want him dropping to both knees and shooting from across the cage,” Whittaker said on his “MMArcade” podcast. “I want him like, army crawling to Pereira’s ankles. We’re blanketing him for 25 minutes. We need to slow him down, or we need to get him to a position where he’s uncomfortable. We need to start making threat levels elsewhere.
“Because you see every standup fight Pereira is in, every single one of them, even when he’s hurt, even when he’s getting hit like when he was with Rountree. He’s just comfortable there. He will stay there. He’ll be there till the crowds leave. Like he’s so comfortable and confident in that position, in that dynamic of fighting, that it’s silly to fight him there.”
Whittaker is ultimately predicting that Pereira will successfully notch his fourth title defense.
“I’m going to go Pereira,” Whittaker said. “Like I said, if Ankalaev doesn’t drop levels with him in the first 3 minutes, I don’t think he makes it out of the first round. I don’t want to be striking with that guy, period. He hits like a truck. He’s very comfortable and confident standing. So, yeah, you have to get him on his back in that first round. … Pereira brings a definite X element into the game.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.
