Pereira was carrying uncertainties about him before the octagon door closed, and how the fight actually played out seemed to even justify a lot of them. There were tons of posters around here saying he turned into "unmotivated" Poatan, not training enough, enjoying his newfound fame and wealth, rumours of a broken left hand suggestion came out afterwards, that Ankalaev was criminally underrated, etc, etc, etc.
in my opinion, Alex did seem off before the fight, and he seemed awfully damn hesitant to even try to unload. I never took Ank as a scrub to start with, but honestly, beyond shutting Alex down (similar to how Sean shut Izzy down), Magomed didn't really seem all that impressive. To be honest, the big takeaway from that fight for me was Alex's TDD, he did better than I expected in that department. Alex had also kept a busy schedule and that would have to have taken a toll on him, however, Ankalaev did deserve the win.
I do expect a much different fight this go around, and I don't know if I even want Alex to win the belt back. Almost would rather see him take a stab at HW full-time. Get some highlight reel KO's breaking these fat, slow dudes legs and busting up their pretty faces.
