Alex Pereira‘s engine just couldn’t get going during his UFC 313 loss to Magomed Ankalaev. The sublime striker looked remarkably hesitant and gun-shy en route to a unanimous decision loss to the Dagestani. Moreover, the former champ couldn’t get into a flow state as he usually does towards the latter half of a fight. This is because Ankalaev’s forward pressure didn’t let Pereira get comfortable at all. While the Dagestani didn’t manage even one successful takedown out of the 12 he attempted, he did manage to stifle the Brazilian by controlling him against the cage in the later rounds.

After the fight, ‘Poatan’ would complain about Ankalaev’s “boring style” for holding him against the cage, and feared that “when a guy gets a win doing that, it kind of makes people want to do that, too.” But former middleweight champ Robert Whittaker thinks this is pure, unadulterated, 100% cope from ‘Poatan’.

“I did think it funny when Pereira, straight after the fight, and obviously emotions are running high, but he’s talking about the cage control when Ankalaev pushed him up against the fence and controlled him there. And albeit [Ankalaev] wasn’t doing a lot of damage, but he was still getting pushed up against a fence and held there, you know. It wasn’t like Ankalaev wasn’t going trying to do anything. And if it’s such a no-contest sort of thing, then like get off the fence. Get off it. He did it a few times like during the fight. And you can’t let another man control you, period,” ‘The Reaper’ said on the ‘MMArcade’ podcast.

In fact, the former middleweight champ felt that Pereira was entirely too passive during the fight, with Ankalaev shouldering the majority of the initiative. “Like Alex was not throwing. Like, yes, he was throwing his kicks but he wasn’t throwing much with his hands, he wasn’t letting them go,” Whittaker added.

‘The Reaper’ did commend the Brazilian for doing a “fantastic job with takedown defense” by snuffing all 12 takedown attempts “but I think just the takedown threat [from Ankalaev] maybe had Alex a little bit skittish in terms of whether he wanted to  completely let his hands go.” And Periera’s loss has not only sent shockwaves in his own division, it also has massive repercussions for the heavyweight division and Jon Jones’s future.

Alex Pereira’s UFC 313 loss leaves Jon Jones with no choice but to fight Tom Aspinall

Dana White looked pretty upset in the cage when the judge’s scorecard cemented that Alex Pereira wasn’t the champ anymore. Not only had ‘Poatan’ become the face of the UFC, but his loss has closed the doors to a once-in-a-generation fight. “That’s off the table now, the Alex Pereira fight at heavyweight or any other weight, really. I guess [Jon Jones] could still fight him at light heavyweight, but it wouldn’t be for a title,” interim heavyweight champ Tom Aspinall gloated after Pereira’s UFC 313 loss.

Indeed, heavyweight champ Jon Jones is looking for a big farewell fight and has expressed interest in facing Pereira. If ‘Poatan’ had won, many believe he would have been given a three-division champ fight against Jones for his heavyweight title. But alas, that was not to be. Magomed Ankalaev seemingly flushed those plans down the drain with his forward pressure and clinching.

And that, delightfully, means that Jones now has no choice but to fight Aspinall, which he doesn’t really want to do. After all, the English interim champ has a natural size advantage over ‘Bones’, is younger, has an equally well-rounded game, and is a destructive power puncher, capable of ending the fight in one second.

In short, a stylistic nightmare for Jones. This is why Aspinall is seemingly so happy at the Brazilian’s UFC 313 loss. What do you think about Robert Whittaker’s take on Pereira’s comments about Ankalaev after the fight?