I'm going to need a source for this. If you're correct, I'll stop criticizing Alex for fighting Rountree instead of Ank
https://www.bjpenn.com/mma-news/mag...ight-booked-and-its-not-against-alex-pereira/
^^^ That was back in August. Alex had fought in July against Jiri and was planning to rest for the remaining 6 months of the year, which was fair enough considering he'd had 5 fights in the previous 14 months.
Then the UFC were clearly struggling with 307. Not that I'm complaining about WMMA, but they had 4 girl fights. 2 on the prelims, one to open the main card, and they would have had to have had Pena/Rocky headlining unless they got something else. That would have been a hard sell to the majority of the fan base, especially the casuals.
So they got Alex and Hill in there.
It's hard to know what to be pissy at Alex for because I can't even tell if he's a manufactured champ and mixed martial artist or if he's legit. But the longer he's fed nothing but strikers, the more criticism he's going to get from me. There are other parties that also deserve criticism, but Alex is most definitely not exempt.
It's pretty obvious that he's taking all kinds of fights at short notice because they're feeding him inferior strikers, so that most definitely does not put him above suspicion he's ducking grapplers.
I think it's unfair to say he's taking short notice fights because they're giving him inferior strikers. It's not his fault they can't strike as well as him.
And if it isn't these guys he fought, who is it? And I mean apart from Ank.
The "he only fights strikers" criticism falls flat for me once I look at the rankings. The only decent grapplers there are Jan, Nikita, Menifield, and Smith, and the latter two aren't even that good at it. Jan he already beat and Nikita doesn't make any sense either.
There were more options at MW, but even none of those options were great wrestling powerhouses. It feels like Alex's critics can't take him seriously unless he fights the Khabib of LHW/MW, but that guy doesn't even exist.
Maybe Chimaev would have been that guy, but he can either barely make a fight or comes in way overweight.
The worst thing is that if Alex/Ank happens, Ank is probably going to just stand and strike anyway lol. He has always been way more focused on striking than grappling. If that happens and Alex wins, everyone is still going to be saying he never fought a striker, but at that point there won't be any other options.
There are absolutely no doubts that Ankalaev is the most deserving contender. Any doubts that might exist are about other questions, but not that one.
Yeh, I agree. My point is that Ank should just keep forcing the issue. He'll get his shot eventually. It's not like the UFC don't agree either. They have him as the no.1 contender on their site. Those rankings aren't decided by the media either like the UFC says lol. They control those. I've seen them do dodgy shit in line with upcoming fighters they want to push.
It absolutely says something about him if he never legitimizes himself as a champion and a mixed martial artist.
Maybe it says he doesn't really care about any of that. As fans, we like to see it, and we expect it, but that doesn't mean the fighters all care about being some legitimate champ.
I mean look at Conor. He never gave a fuck about being some highly proven champ. Topuria is the same now as well. Had one defense and lost all motivation to defend lol.
I feel like it's way different these days compared to when Silva, GSP, and Mighty Mouse were racking up as many defenses as possible. Being the champ doesn't mean anywhere near as much as it used to, and you can make more money doing other things.
Alex might just want to fight and get paid at this point. If that means avoiding the Ank fight and taking the big money fight at HW, then that's what might happen.
And it's not even that out of character for Alex. He could have easily gotten a rematch with Izzy after he lost if he pushed hard enough. Instead he just gave up and left for LHW.
Same sort of thing in Glory. Lost the belt via split decision and bailed.
I really think he cares way less about being the champ than you would like to see out of him.
lol tbf nobody should enjoy my posts, but I genuinely look forward to your contributions in the ONE PBP threads and discussions.
OMG I didn't realize. You're the one I converted to the Octopus fan club!
Still breaks my heart what happened to her. Glad that cheating Pirnie girl got what was coming to her and lost her next fight easily lol.
It's been way too long since the Octopus fought too.
