Midnight Mania: Wrestle Or Die?

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

Light Heavyweight gold is on the line at UFC 313.

In the main event, feared knockout artist Alex Pereira will seek to defend his crown a fourth time opposite Combat Sambo ace Magomed Ankalaev. Ankalaev is almost uniquely well-rounded amongst the 205-pound contenders, a veteran with savvy counter striking and hellacious ground-and-pound. Ahead of their long-awaited title clash, Ankalaev has implied on several occasions that he’ll be looking to knock out the former Glory Kickboxing champion.

Former UFC Middleweight champion Robert Whittaker believes that’s a terrible strategy. “The Reaper” was at one point in the discussion as a possible “Poatan” opponent back in the Brazilian’s Middleweight days, so he’s plenty familiar with Pereira’s strengths and weaknesses.

His advice? Wrestle. Right away. Waste absolutely no time before wrestling!

“If I’m coaching Ankalaev, I want him dropping to both knees and shooting from across the cage,” Whittaker said on his “MMArcade” podcast (via MMAJunkie). “I want him like, army crawling to Pereira’s ankles. We’re blanketing him for 25 minutes. We need to slow him down, or we need to get him to a position where he’s uncomfortable. We need to start making threat levels elsewhere.

“Because you see every standup fight Pereira is in, every single one of them, even when he’s hurt, even when he’s getting hit like when he was with Rountree — he’s just comfortable there. He will stay there. He’ll be there till the crowds leave. Like he’s so comfortable and confident in that position, in that dynamic of fighting, that it’s silly to fight him there.”

Despite seeing an opening for Ankalaev on the mat, Whittaker later concluded with a Pereira prediction.

He explained, “I’m going to go Pereira. Like I said, if Ankalaev doesn’t drop levels with him in the first 3 minutes, I don’t think he makes it out of the first round. I don’t want to be striking with that guy, period. He hits like a truck.”

Ankalaev’s strategy in the first five minutes will be very interesting. The most notable example of him opting to stand rather than wrestle to his own detriment came against Jan Blachowicz, who kicked apart Ankalaev’s lead leg in the first three rounds and had him limping badly. The Russian talent was still able to force some takedowns late and even the scores, but perhaps if he moved with that game plan from the first bell, he would’ve walked away with UFC gold rather than a draw.

Think Ankalaev learned his lesson or will he live up to his promise of testing Pereira’s chin?

Insomnia

Poatan or Merab Dvalishvili, who’s the current UFC side quest king?

Nate Diaz hanging out with a group of the real housewives … who would have guessed?

Prime Bas Rutten was a scary man. Am I wrong in feeling like the average fight fan forgets/underrates “El Guapo?”

I would happily watch any of these BKFC match ups. What’s next for Jeremy Stephens?

Jean Silva would appear to be lining up an opponent in the event he defeats Bryce Mitchell. I like the vision …

Controversy aside, I do think Manel Kape is perhaps the most interesting challenger available for Alexandre Pantoja right now.

Justin Gaethje with some perspective:

By the time this season of Russian TUF is finished, Petr Yan and Aljamain Sterling will have spent more minutes fighting than Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo.

Slips, rips, and KO clips

I love the idea of Edson Barboza being tagged anytime there’s a wheel kick around the globe.

Huge lands off a caught kick are some of the coolest moments.

Impressive to move from the failed guillotine DIRECTLY into heavy ground strikes.

Random Land

This level of preparation would genuinely drive me insane.

Midnight Music: Blues, 1967

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.