Idk why... But Big Ank isn't recognized as maybe the first or second strongest fighter currently. That's one nasty competitor. He's a top 3 worst draw ever. Your can't beat him down, you can't scare him down, he is so tough, so game... It's one of those things.
The only fight he lost was one he won but tapped for some weird reason in less than 5 seconds. Someone said his tongue was caught between his teeth unfortunately. But he has the skills of a 22-0 u defeated fighter. Talk about a prime LHW JJ ? That's exactly who Ankalaev is... A prime Jon Jones in LHW when he fought Gus 2, Gus 1, DC. That's how good Big Ank is, except Big Ank is also big. Right now (consider JJ retired) the only fighter who can beat Ankalaev is Poatan and the only fighter who can beat Poatan is Ankalaev. Period. They won't lose against anyone else. They are top 2 baddest dudes for sure. Ankalaev is a fighter who will get an uppercut from Ngannou and keep fighting as if he had beem hit by a strong punch but not enough to wobble him badly. He is the toughest fighter maybe + huge cardio like Pereira.
There's a reason team Khabib , team Islam mention him and all but they aren't that much friends. Because Khabib and Makhachev are still human beings, they do other things like media, funny things. Ankalaev won't make funny videos with DC, media stuff. The only things he will be doing is training, eating and sleeping. He's the best Dagestani to ever fight in MMA. And he's not from team Khabib, he's from some place in Dagestan that people don't bother him because he trains harder than anyone but he can train as much as he can and have no bad consequences, because he's genetically favoured in a way you can say he's the Merab of UFC while Poatan is the Topuria of UFC. That's like a fight between Merab vs Topuria if Merab were actually in the same weight class as Topuria.
That's a fighter who can only be beaten by Pereira and vice versa. He can never be KO'd, he can only lose by close decisions. Chimaev, DDP, Tom Aspinall? Ok, big hype... But Ank is the fighter who lacks this hype but can easily beat any of them. He can go to HW and easily beat Tom Aspinall. Again, he's the pinnacle of Dagestan fighters, a fighter who no other Dagestan fighter would even mess up with. Imagine an Islam Makhachev naturally at 230 lbs with the skills of Islam but as if this Islam were on turinabol? Yes that's how good Ankalaev is, a top 2 fighter currently.