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Alex Pereira recently admitted he wasn’t hacked after all. His May tweet that broke the internet? Yep, that was intentional.
But Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) tacked it up to a miscommunication between his internal team and absolved UFC from the criticism. Pereira added to this in a recent interview with MMA Junkie, where he went as far as to say the negotiations were smooth sailing.
In fact, Pereira said that behind the scenes he was still calling the shots, which is what triggered champion Magomed Ankalaev’s streamline of tweets calling out the challenger.
“It wasn’t complicated to get the rematch,” Pereira recently told MMA Junkie through a Portuguese-language interpreter via Stake. “As soon as I got out of that fight, I knew I was going to have the immediate rematch. It was just a matter of letting my body heal. I had a lot of injuries, a lot of things. But him as the champion, it just goes to show he’s got no say in anything. In the end, whatever I spoked to the UFC about and whatever was convenient to me is what ended up happening. He wanted to fight in July. He wanted to fight all these times, and it didn’t happen. It came to be just as I needed it and just as I wanted it.”
Anakalaev’s social media presence grew handily in the lead-up to their first meeting at UFC 313 in March. He backed up the talk (or the tweets) with action as he soundly beat Pereira en route to a unanimous decision.
One month out from their rematch and Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) is still going. He recently tweeted Pereira brought in “taxi drivers” to help with his takedown defense.
But as his rid of care as his facial expression showed, Pereira doesn’t put much weight into the pokes and prods of the Russian champion.
“It doesn’t really matter to me,” Pereira said. “It doesn’t make a difference. The fact is that nobody knows he’s a champion, and he always has to bring up my name to bring up some kind of coverage. That’s why I don’t reply. That’s why I don’t retweet. That’s why I don’t do anything because I’m not giving him that thought.”
Pereira will have the opportunity to avenge his loss when the two rematch at UFC 320 on Oct. 4 in Las Vegas.
