Could superstar champion Alex Pereira meet his match at UFC 313?

Top-ranked Russian light heavyweight Magomed Ankalaev received some English lessons from UFC Hall of Famer/current commentator Daniel Cormier going into his last fight in October 2024.

At least six words stuck with him.

“Alex, stop running away from me,” Ankalaev said at Cormier’s urging after a win over Aleksandar Rakić in the octagon, and then again at the post-fight news conference.

It was a pointed message to light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, who has somehow held the title since November 2023 and defended it three times without facing Ankalaev.

That ends on March 8 at T-Mobile Arena when Pereira (12-2 MMA, 9-1 UFC) and Ankalaev (19-1-1 MMA, 11-1-1 UFC) battle for supremacy of the 205-pound division in the main event of UFC 313.

The betting market sets the bout as a straight pick’ em, which might come as a surprise to more casual mixed martial arts observers.

Pereira has, somewhat out of nowhere, become the biggest star in the sport. The 37-year-old joined the UFC relatively recently, less than four years ago, as a career kickboxer known for beating then-UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in a pair of striking matches.

The pair renewed their rivalry in the octagon—each knocking each other out once—to build Pereira into a draw, but then his popularity really exploded when he moved up a weight class. It took only two fights for “Poatan”—Pereira’s nickname that roughly translates to “stone hands” from his native Brazilian tribal language—to capture the light heavyweight title and start a string of four straight knockout victories that captivated millions.

“It’s a testament to how when you keep your discipline and you keep believing in yourself and keep doing everything correctly,” Pereira said through a translator at a news conference. “I’ve been having the same discipline since I was an amateur and, at the time, you didn’t know what money you were going to make, how far you were going to go. Here I am in this glamour in the UFC, making money with all these people around. People lend me their nice cars to drive and people want to take me to dinner nice places, so I’m proud of how far I’ve come.”

But some diehard fans have nitpicked Pereira’s strength of schedule during his championship reign and described his opponents as favorable to his strengths as a world-class striker.

Count Ankalaev among those detractors. The 32-year-old has turned into primarily a striker himself but has a background in combat sambo with the grappling chops that could dismantle Pereira.

Ankalaev’s résumé was strong enough to merit a shot at Pereira long ago, but he’s among those who allege the UFC intentionally slowplayed giving him the fight as a way to maintain the champion’s drawing power.

“I think they are protecting him,” Ankalaev said through a translator a few months before UFC 313 was announced. “We know he’s an exciting fighter. We know that he fights in the stand-up, he’s a great striker. I think they are just saving him.”

Ankalaev describes those lengths as unnecessary from a stylistic standpoint. He’s said he’s so confident he can beat Pereira that he won’t even use his wrestling, which is where he seemingly holds the biggest advantage, and will instead exclusively contest the bout on the feet.

One of the biggest questions heading into UFC 313 is whether he will live up to that promise. Pereira doesn’t seem to be taking Ankalaev’s word for it, focusing heavily on wrestling in his training camp including working with locally based former middleweight champion Sean Strickland.

“I don’t think this is going to be that hard of a fight for me,” Ankalaev said through a translator. “I think I’ve had harder fights.”

Pereira has largely ignored Ankalaev’s talk about him over the last year beyond disputing the allegations that he’s avoided fighting him. Pereira said he never chooses his opponents; he lets the UFC handle that side of the business.

The champion has never been a man of many words, which has played into his appeal with the masses. His mild-mannered, soft-spoken style outside the octagon naturally conflicts with the heavy-handed master of violence he transforms into for fight night.

Pereira’s walkouts have become rituals of legend with him walking into arenas gently with a steely glare on his opponent before eventually making a bow-and-arrow motion in a nod to his heritage as part of Brazil’s indigenous Pataxó tribe.

If Pereira keeps winning, he could take the spectacle to a whole new level and perhaps get booked into some of the biggest fights in UFC history. For one, current heavyweight champion Jon Jones, widely considered the best fighter of all-time, has expressed interest in facing Pereira in a super fight.

But as fast as rises like Pereira’s can flare up, they can also fizzle out just as quickly. That’s what Ankalaev says will happen at UFC 313.

“He’s not going to escape,” Ankalaev said.

This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.