Alex Pereira releases statement after UFC 313 loss: ‘Gonna make adjustments for the rematch’

Pereira may have lost his belt, but he hasn’t lost his champion’s spirit.

Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.

Alex Pereira is already looking forward to a rematch against Magomed Ankalaev, mere hours after the Russian took the UFC light heavyweight title off him at UFC 313.

It was an ugly fight between Pereira and Ankalaev that saw “Poatan” on the backfoot for a lot of the five round bout. While Ankalaev was never able to take Pereira down with his wrestling, he did manage to completely stifle any offense from the champion, leading to a lot of frustration from both Pereira and the fans. The judges would award Ankalaev the fight with 48-47, 48-47, and 49-46 scores.

Now Pereira has taken to social media to record a statement to his fans.

“That’s it, everyone — some marks, but I’m good,” he said, showing off his face. “Gonna rest a bit. I’ll be back, like I’ve always done. This has already happened sometimes, but I’m good.”

“I’m grateful for all your support, for all your love, always supporting me,” he continued. “I’m receiving so many messages of great encouragement. I’m here with my people, my family, my team, my children. Everyone is here with me. Gonna have some pizza ... that’s it. Life continues. Thank you to everyone. Thank you to my team.”

“Gonna make some adjustments for the rematch and I’ll be back much better,” he concluded. “You can count on it. All good, people. Never give up on your dreams. Chama.”

This puts everyone in alignment on what will happen next. At the UFC 313 post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White said they’d ‘probably’ do an immediate rematch between Pereira and Ankalaev. You have Pereira saying it’s the fight he wants, and Ankalaev has said he’s also happy to fight “Poatan” again.

The only question now is when the fight may happen, and if Pereira can adjust enough to stop Ankalaev from controlling things in the cage again. Let us know how you think a rematch will go in the comments below!

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