Magomed Ankalaev believes Alex Pereira utilized some underhanded tricks at UFC 313.
The end result of their first fight in March saw Ankalaev walk out with his hand raised after earning a close decision win over Pereira to claim the light heavyweight title. Next Saturday, they rematch in the main event of UFC 320 in Las Vegas.
Ankalaev and Pereira's public animosity has grown int he lead-up to their second encounter and now Ankalaev is going as far as to say that Pereira cheated in the UFC 313 main event by greasing to make it more difficult for Ankalaev to grapple with him.
"To be honest with you, I went through a lot when I was fighting for the title," Ankalaev said via a Russian translator, speaking to the media at an open workout in Las Vegas. "That training camp was terrible, I couldn't wrestle for the most part of the training camp, I was battling a lot of injuries and there was a lot of reasons.
"Also, I told my coach right away during the rounds that I felt like he was greased. He was just too slippery. These things happen in professional sport, I'm not accusing him of anything, but that's just what I felt. I spar every day, I train every day, you can feel when people are slippery. It's too much slippery. So I felt he was too greasy and that played a role also."
Ankalaev managed to out-strike the fearsome Pereira over the course of their five-round fight, but there was no shortage of wrestling on his part. He failed to put Pereira on his back, going 0-12 on takedown attempts.
This week, Pereira accused Ankalaev of being the slippery one, claiming the light heavyweight champion avoided him when they were both at the UFC Performance Institute. Ankalaev vehemently denies Pereira's version of the story, and says Pereira had a different energy when they ran into each other later in the week.
"It's a very interesting story because the other day I was doing some physical therapy, like a massage, and then after I finished I came out, I was told that Pereira was there, but I didn't see him," Ankalaev said. "Then the next day I see a video come out where he says that I was hiding and stuff like that, which is not true, and I was a little angry when I saw the video.
"So then I saw him today, I approached him, I said, 'Hey, when did I see you or when did you see me?' It never happened. To which he answered, 'Oh, there was one girl who told me that you were there' but, you know, he switched the topic."
Ankalaev put together a 13-fight unbeaten run (including a no-contest and a draw) in his pursuit of Pereira, so they already had history heading into UFC 313. Ahead of UFC 320, Ankalaev enters the octagon with an even bigger chip on his shoulder.
"Honestly, up until recently, I had respect for him as a fighter, as a person, but I no longer respect him because he just–OK, trash talk is something that you hype up the fight and you say something funny or maybe just to be salty, but when you lie to people and say, 'I saw him and he hid, he was hiding in the PI,' stuff like that that he recently said, I don't respect people like that," Ankalaev said. "Why would you lie about something that never happened? I have no problem, but if he gets close to me next week and I decide he's too close to me, of course I'm going to defend myself. But other than that, we'll see everything in the cage."
