Alex Pereira: Team Magomed Ankalaev’s greasing accusation an excuse for failed takedowns at UFC 313

Alex Pereira fired back at Magomed Ankalaev’s coach for accusing him of greasing at UFC 313.

Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) lost his light heavyweight title to Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) by unanimous decision in their main event earlier this month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

In an interview with Ushatayka, Ankalaev’s coach Sukhrab Magomedov accused Pereira of being sticky and having ointment on his body to help him defend takedowns. He even claimed that Pereira’s mentor Glover Teixeira was known to grease.

Pereira stuffed all 12 of Ankalaev’s takedowns, but denies trying to gain an unfair advantage.

“Absolutely did not put anything on my body,” Pereira said on “The Ariel Helwani Show” through an interpreter. “The way his coach is putting it, it sounds to me that he’s trying to make an excuse to justify the fact that he trained a guy to take me down, but the guy got stuffed for 12 of his takedown attempts. It’s like you’re in a company, you mess up, and you don’t do what you’re supposed to do, and then you try to make excuses to justify that. Absolutely didn’t put anything on my body.

“You also have to ask his coach if we put oil and vaseline on the mats too, because is that why Ankalaev fell on his back? He got taken down like that? It upsets me because even in my Glory career, I never did anything I wasn’t supposed to do. If you watch the one time that I got a point taken away, it was because the referee was saying there was too much clinching when there was not, but I always did everything by the book, and that’s why everything’s worked so good in my career.”

Pereira and Ankalaev are expected to rematch, with UFC CEO Dana White confirming that it will probably happen. Even Ankalaev acknowledged that “Poatan” is the most deserving of a shot.

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 313.