Alex Pereira’s coaches disagree with the UFC 313 decision.
Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) lost his light heavyweight title to Magomed Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) by unanimous decision in Saturday’s UFC 313 main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Both Glover Teixeira and Plinio Cruz thought their fighter should have gotten his hand raised after managing to stuff all of Ankalaev’s takedown attempts and keeping the fight on the feet.
“We had this defeat, but in my opinion he won,” Teixeira said on Pereira’s YouTube channel (h/t MMA Fighting). “He lost on points, so now we go back to the drawing board and adjust a few things, train hard and go back and get this rematch and make history. ‘Poatan’ has made history before, and he will make history again. He’s a great warrior and I’m very proud of him.”
Things are trending towards an immediate rematch between Pereira and Ankalaev, and Cruz vows a better version of his fighter.
“Life is made of ups and downs, and those ups and downs are what make us who we are on this journey to our goal,” Cruz said. “We’ll come back stronger, regroup as a team. The vibe was great this week. We have no excuses. ‘Poatan’ was fine, and I think he won the fight. This is a stumble, not a fall, and it will only make him stronger, our team stronger. Humans evolve more in times of adversity. Rivalries make us grow.
“It went (Ankalaev’s) way this time, so we’ll train more, study more, get better to deliver you a better version of ‘Poatan’ – more mean. What this guy’s done was make it worse for him because now he’ll fight ‘Poatan 2.0.’ It’s happened to ‘Poatan’ before. It’s not the first time, and a true champion is the one that stumbles but continues moving forward and reconquers it. ‘Poatan’ will reconquer the belt in the rematch. (He’ll be) a more mean version, and our team will be on a level that is higher than it already is.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.
