UFC 313 Paths to Victory: How do Alex Pereira, Magomed Ankalaev leave Vegas with UFC gold?

Alex Pereira vs. Magomed Ankalaev is finally here.

On Saturday, Pereira defends his light heavyweight title against Ankalaev at UFC 313 in Las Vegas. It’s a fight that’s been building for nearly two years, with some fans suggesting Ankalaev is the toughest test in the division for Pereira. Will that prove true on Saturday and how can both man leave Las Vegas with UFC gold? Let’s dive in.

Paths to Victory for Alex Pereira at UFC 313

This is the fourth Paths I’ve written for Pereira in the past 12 months, and as I mentioned for UFC 307, it’s getting harder to write new and interesting things about “Poatan.” At this point, everyone knows what Pereira brings to the table and yet, no one at 205 pounds has been able to stop him.

Pereira’s game is built around two fundamental tools. Yes, he’s has a deep bag of tricks he can pull from, but everything ultimately boils down to two things: his left hook and his low kicks. They are the Scylla and Charybdis of the MMA world right now, and while the catastrophically destructive Charybdis (left hook) of Pereira gets most of the headlines, it’s the more subtle devastation of Scylla (the low kicks) that will function as Pereira’s primary key to victory on Saturday.

In The Odyssey, Circe advises Odysseus to choose Scylla because Charybdis will take his whole ship, while Scylla will merely kill a bunch of his men. That’s the basic dichotomy of striking with Pereira where fighters are so concerned with avoiding the brutal end of a left hook, they fall prey to the low kicks, which ultimately takes the legs out from under them and renders them useless down the stretch. And that’s a huge problem for Ankalaev as he’s particularly bad about stopping low kicks. Jan Blachowics very nearly beat Ankalev with nothing more than calf kicks and a dream, and Pereira is a vastly superior kicker to Blachowicz.

So with all that said, the path for Pereira on Saturday is simple: sweep the leg. It’s one of Pereira’s best weapons and Ankalaev’s biggest weaknesses. 1+1=2. No need to complicate this. In space, take the legs out from under Ankalaev at every available opportunity. Ankalaev will likely attempt to wrestle but that will get harder as the fight goes on and his legs turn to jello. Kick the legs early and often and by the championship rounds, Ankalaev should be a sitting duck. Oh, and liberal use of teeps is also a good weapon that will help keep the distance at a comfortable range.

Paths to victory for Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313

For as much as the above section might make it seem like Ankalaev is out of his depth, the challenger is no such thing. In fact, Ankalaev has the best chance of anyone at 205 pounds of dethroning Pereira for a number of reasons.

The first and most obvious thing in Ankalaev’s favor is his grappling. Though Pereira is a BJJ black belt, the consensus is that it will be much easier to defeat Pereira on the floor than on the feet, because he can’t left hook you off his back. Ankalaev is the premier wrestler in the light heavyweight division and has successfully taken down every opponent he’s attempted to take down. Pereira gave up a number of takedowns to Jan Blachowicz who isn’t nearly the wrestler Ankalaev is, so it’s a fair bet to assume Ankalaev can get some takedowns on Saturday.

And if Ankalaev can do that, this fight gets real hard for Pereira real fast. Perhaps Ankalaev’s best skill is his ability to punish opponents when he gets top position. Anthony Smith found out the hard way and you can simply look to the photo above this section to see how much fun Jan Blachowicz had underneath Ankalaev. When Ankalaev scores takedowns, he can make them count, which is something Blachowicz struggled to do against Pereira.

Then again, Ankalaev isn’t forced into an all-or-nothing situation with the grappling. The reason I noted Ankalaev has taken down “every opponent he’s tried to take down” is that he often doesn’t concern himself with wrestling. Though he has a clear weakness to low kicks, Ankalaev is a dangerous striker in his own right with big power, sneaky good timing, and a crafty right hand he can throw on the counter or from the lead when he switches to southpaw. On top of that, Ankalaev has a good chin, having only been dropped once in his career, and never knocked out. Sure, Pereira is the better striker, but the history of MMA shows us plenty of times that the “better striker” got stuck.

None of this is to say that Ankalaev should make good on his promise to strike with Pereira, but its important because one of the biggest keys to any high-level MMA fight is a willingness to compete in all phases. At the top end of the sport you simply can’t punt on one aspect of MMA. If Ankalaev comes in and shoots desperately for takedowns, the fight is over. But because he can compete on the feet, that will open up the grappling for him, and make it much more likely he wins on Saturday.

X Factor

One of the reasons this fight is so interesting is because outside of the Xs and Os of it, there peripheral stuff is fascinating. On Pereira’s side, this is his fourth fight in less than 12 months, which is a brutal schedule to keep up at this level, especially considering he’s also flying all around the world with other obligations. Is he as focused as he should be? Will it even matter if he isn’t? Who knows!

And on the Ankalaev side of things, he’s in the middle of Ramadan. While he’s taking some liberties with fasting, that’s still a big variable to contend with when making weight and getting locked in for the biggest fight of your life. To the best of my knowledge this is only the second time Ankalaev has fought during Ramadan and the stakes are quite a bit highter than a WFCA fight in 2016.

Prediction

My head tells me that this is a surprisingly good fight for Pereira. Ankalaev has a clear weakness he can attack and while he’s a good wrestler, Pereira is better defensively than people give him credit for. But I cannot quite shake the vibes of everything this week. The MMA Gods hate plans and people are penciling Pereira in for superfights with Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall already. And Pereira’s schedule concerns me. Basically nobody fights this frequently as a champion for a reason: eventually the die roll comes up bad.

In a shocking turn of events, my gut tells me Ankalaev sleeps Pereira with a right hand somewhere in the middle of the fight.

Magomed Ankalaev def. Alex Pereira via KO (punch) at 3:07 of Round 2.