Too many side quests? Alex Pereira needs to buckle down if he wants to win his belt back from Magomed Ankalaev

Pereira spent a lot of his training camp for UFC 313 on the road, which may have played into Ankalaev’s ability to exploit his weaknesses.

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.

It is a sad night for many UFC fans after the Alex Pereira war wagon hit a major pothole at UFC 313.

A listless Pereira lost his light heavyweight belt to Magomed Ankalaev, who looked focused and disciplined but by no means unbeatable in the octagon this Saturday March 8th in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was the same Ankalaev we’ve seen at past events: he wins, but he doesn’t particularly excite or impress. We give him credit for taking the belt off “Poatan,” but Fight of the Night it was not.

That’s often Ankalaev’s modus operandi — he has no problem slowing down the pace and picking you apart, mixing in some takedowns to stifle an opponent’s offense and a good smattering of wall and stall. He’s got knockout power, which he used to wobble Pereira in the second round. But he’s not abandoning the gameplan to swing for the fences.

That gameplan seemed to involve using the threat of counters and takedowns to keep Pereira from unleashing his offense. He ended up putting “Poatan” on the backfoot for a lot of the fight, and the Brazilian only had a few moments where he seemed comfortable letting go and throwing, which allowed Ankalaev to snatch enough rounds to win.

Pereira was left frustrated at the results of the fight, complaining about Ankalaev’s willingness to put him against the fence and hold him there. But that was just one area where they nullified his offense. The only space Alex had much success in was kicking the leg, and that never ended up paying dividends in the later rounds.

This is the problem with being champion: everyone is always working on a plan to take your throne. Magomed Ankalaev and his team have undoubtedly been plotting out this fight for over a year. And when you have a good gameplan crafted to disrupt your opponent’s ability to attack, you end up with what we saw in Ankalaev vs. Pereira.

Now there’ll be all sorts of questions surrounding Pereira’s preparation for this bout. “Poatan” was famously cageside for UFC 312 in Australia, a mere four weeks away from his fateful fight with Ankalaev. He’s been hitting record metrics on YouTube and Instagram, but have his training sessions been focused enough to calibrate for each opponent?

Pereira is a student of the fight game through and through. We don’t doubt his worldwide training camps result in him getting a lot of world class training with world class athletes. But he clearly didn’t spend weeks working the dull but essential grappling against the cage to keep a fighter like Ankalaev from pinning him to the fence.

And you know what? I’m not sure I want the Brazilian fighter to change. The world would be a duller place if “Poatan” wasn’t showing up in prank videos or arm wrestling Korean body builders. Do we need him to drop everything and change his training style to counter blanket or wall n’ stall strategies? Maybe if we want him to take the belt back and reign over the light heavyweight division again.

There’s a lot of fun fights out there for Pereira at multiple weight classes against other opponents more willing to throw down. He could easily return to the side quests, pick up a couple wins against exciting opponents, and make a lot of money. Or he could buckle down and spend an uncomfortable three months grinding against the cage and closing the holes Ankalaev used to beat him so we can see a rematch later this year. Let’s see what he picks.