Magomed Ankalaev is tired of waiting on the light heavyweight top five, and he’s now openly floating a jump to heavyweight, where his old rival Alex Pereira already set up shop.
The former UFC light heavyweight champion laid out his complaint on X, going down the list of available contenders one by one.
“Looks like nobody in the top five at light heavyweight wants to fight,” Ankalaev wrote. “Everybody’s got a reason. Khalil Rountree (is) not ready, Reyes just fought and is injured. Costa wants $10 million.”
Then came the pitch. “So what about heavyweight? Anybody ready to fight? Let’s do it in January,” he added.
That’s about as straight an answer as you’ll get from a fighter on social media, and I’ll take it over a cryptic emoji any day.
How he got here
Ankalaev’s title run at 205 was short. Pereira took the belt back by knockout in their immediate rematch a little over a year ago, which left the series tied 1-1. Ankalaev got back in the win column this past July when he knocked out Bogdan Guskov, and he wanted to stay busy off that result. Instead he’s been staring at an empty dance card.
The math at light heavyweight is ugly for him. Ankalaev sits at No. 2 in the official UFC rankings, and the only name above him is Pereira, who left the division this year and is preparing for his second heavyweight fight. Jiri Prochazka is booked against Navajo Stirling at UFC Qatar later this month. That leaves Reyes, Paulo Costa and Rountree as the only unbooked fighters in the top seven, and Ankalaev has now publicly crossed all three off for different reasons, according to Bloody Elbow.
This also isn’t the first time he’s talked about following Pereira up. Ankalaev has said before that he’d be open to settling their trilogy at heavyweight.
There’s a fun wrinkle sitting in the background, too. The UFC’s most recent main event saw Johnny Walker, a man Ankalaev knocked out, beat top-10 heavyweight Waldo Cortes-Acosta. That’s two straight wins for Walker since moving up. So the heavyweight division is currently rewarding guys who used to lose to Ankalaev at 205.
My take
I want this. Heavyweight needs bodies, Ankalaev needs a fight, and a man who just put Guskov to sleep shouldn’t be sitting out because Costa’s agent has a number in his head. The cleanest version is obvious: Pereira wins his next one, Ankalaev gets one tune-up at heavyweight, and the trilogy happens up there with nobody cutting weight. If the UFC wants a January date, a rematch with Walker at heavyweight practically books itself, since Walker would have every reason to want revenge.
