Michael Bisping questioned Alex Pereira’s will to win at UFC 313.
Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) lost his light heavyweight title to Magomed Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) by unanimous decision Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Although he stuffed all 12 of Ankalaev’s takedown attempts, Pereira wasn’t able to do any significant damage on the feet.
Bisping expected more from “Poatan.”
“From Alex Pereira, it was just kind of a lazy performance,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “I didn’t see that real desire to want to win. Ankalaev was big, he was strong, he was good enough to compete on the feet, and of course, he had the takedown threat. And even though he didn’t get the takedown, the threat of the takedown was as good as getting the takedown because it opened up the strikes for him. It stopped Pereira from being overly aggressive and didn’t want to go forward too much. For the most part, he was backed up throughout 25 minutes, pushed up against the fence, controlled a little bit.
“Pereira did a really good job of stopping the takedowns, pummeling, fighting the hands. He had really strong hips, takedown defense on point. But you don’t win a fight by defending takedowns. Alex Pereira, the people have come to expect a knockout. In the fifth round, it was like he’s got to deliver here, and he just didn’t. And Ankalaev didn’t give him an opportunity and didn’t allow him. Yes, the crowd were booing, he pushed him up against the fence, but that’s the game. It’s mixed martial arts.”
Pereira thought he should have gotten his hand raised, but Bisping had it four rounds to one in favor of Ankalaev. He thinks Ankalaev beat Pereira at his own game.
“Pereira didn’t seem too happy. He felt that he had a case to win this one,” Bisping said. “He said you shouldn’t win a fight by pushing somebody against the fence. But in mixed martial arts, we see that happen all the time, and Ankalaev landed the bigger shots, he was more aggressive, he was going forward and there was just more output.
“It was a lazy performance. It wasn’t lazy in terms of Pereira wasn’t trying, it wasn’t lazy that he was out of breath and tired and didn’t prepare – even though he did get a bit tired as the fight progressed. The wrestling from Ankalaev certainly added to that, but what I mean by lazy is just the general amount of output that we saw, it just wasn’t there.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.
