UFC light heavyweight Magomed Ankalaev finally gets his shot at the title when he challenges Alex Pereira at UFC 313 on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
“Can’t even explain what I’m feeling right now. It’s been a really long time that we’ve been hunting this belt,” Ankalaev told reporters including Cageside Press through a translator on Wednesday.
“We’ve been waiting for this opportunity over a year, I think, we’ve been asking for it. Now we’re finally here. We have this opportunity. I’m 100% motivated and this is going to be a very different fight.”
Ankalaev (20-1-1) has fought for the belt before. He and Jan Blachowicz fought for the vacant title at UFC 282 following former champion Jiri Prochazka’s shoulder injury taking him out of the main event. Unfortunately for both Ankalaev and Blachowicz the fight was declared a draw.
Now he faces Pereira who has been a rather dominant champion in his reign so far, and has been a change of pace from Blachowicz both in and outside of the cage. There has been a lot more talk between the two leading up to their fight at UFC 313. Ankalaev criticized Pereira’s travels and drinking habits while Poatan said the challenger was using Ramadan as an excuse.
“We weren’t trying to make it personal or anything. We were just saying maybe we’re worried about him that he’s kind of all over the place, all of these different UFC events and stuff like that. Maybe he should have taken it as us being worried about him spending time doing something rather than being prepared for the fight,” he said.
“Whichever way he took it, it’s up to him, it’s not going to help and will make it worse.”
Ramadan, the 9th month of the Islamic calendar, is a holy month for Muslims. Muslims practice fasting, no food or water, from sunrise to sunset which for a fighter obviously would cause some issues.
Specially during a weight cut. Ankalaev has had to make adjustments.
“You know if we’re talking about the training, or the training camp, the preparation that was done before Ramadan. There was no issues with that,” Ankalaev told Cageside Press.
“The only thing that we had to change, because the week of the fight is Ramadan, what I had to do is I had to break a couple of fasting sessions. I have to drink a lot of water in order for me to be able to make the weight. Other than that everything is the same.”
Watch the entire media day scrum with Magomed Ankalaev above. He takes on Alex Pereira at UFC 313 on Saturday night.
