{"id":39530,"date":"2026-07-23T01:41:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Magomed-Ankalaev-admits-he-ignored-teams-pleas-before-Alex-Pereira-KO-202025"},"modified":"2026-07-23T01:41:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T01:41:25","slug":"magomed-ankalaev-admits-he-ignored-teams-pleas-before-alex-pereira-ko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/magomed-ankalaev-admits-he-ignored-teams-pleas-before-alex-pereira-ko\/","title":{"rendered":"Magomed Ankalaev admits he ignored team’s pleas before Alex Pereira KO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

Magomed
\nAnkalaev<\/a> ignored his team’s calls for him to pull out of the
\nAlex
\nPereira<\/a> rematch.<\/p>\n

Ankalaev won the
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> 205-pound title against Pereira
\nin their first matchup at
\nUFC 313<\/a> in March 2025 in dominant fashion. The Russian then put
\nhis title on the line against Pereira in their immediate rematch at
\n
\nUFC 320<\/a> in October. “Poatan” knocked out Ankalaev in just 80
\nseconds to reclaim his strap.<\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Russian has now divulged the obstacles he overcame ahead of the
\nrematch.<\/p>\n

Magomed Ankalaev says health issues led his team to urge him to
\nwithdraw from UFC 320 against Alex Pereira<\/h2>\n

Ankalaev\u2019s team and his manager, Ali Abdelaziz, claimed that he was
\nnot fully fit going into the rematch against Pereira. Abdelaziz
\nsaid that Ankalaev had decided to go ahead with the fight despite
\nbeing advised otherwise by his team. Ankalaev recently admitted that he was dealing with health issues
\ngoing into UFC 320. The former light heavyweight champion also
\nreveals that he ignored his advisors when they told him that the
\nfight could be postponed if he pulled out. Ankalaev paid the price
\nfor his mistake and doesn\u2019t want to relive the memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had some specific health issues at the time, and I was advised
\nby many not to even go out, to pull out of the fight, that they
\nwere gonna move it to a later date,\u201d Ankalaev told MMA Junkie. \u201cI
\ndecided that I was well enough to go on; I decided not to listen to
\nanybody. I made a mistake, and sometimes you have to pay for your
\nmistake. This has been a long time\u2026 I would rather not revisit it
\nif we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ankalaev (20-2) was scheduled to return to action against Khalil
\nRountree<\/a> at
\nUFC Abu Dhabi<\/a> on July 25. However, Rountree pulled out due to
\nan injury and has been replaced by Bogdan
\nGuskov<\/a> (18-3) on 14 days\u2019 notice.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

Magomed
\nAnkalaev<\/a> admits he “made a mistake” rematching Alex
\nPereira<\/a> with compromised health at UFC 320 and sees
\n#UFCAbuDhabi<\/a> as his road back to gold.<\/p>\n

“If we have to clean out the division once again, then we’ll do
\nthat.”<\/p>\n

(via @MikeBohn<\/a>)
\npic.twitter.com\/mLyalGl4aK<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie)
\nJuly 22, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Magomed Ankalaev ignored his team’s calls for him to pull out of the Alex Pereira rematch. Ankalaev won the Ultimate Fighting Championship 205-pound title against Pereira in their first matchup at UFC 313 in March 2025 in dominant fashion. The Russian then put his title on the line against Pereira in their immediate rematch at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}