UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira has all but cleaned out his division. With one huge and persistent exception- #1 ranked Magomed Ankalaev. Many feel that the Dagestani has clearly been deserving of fighting for the title or at least this entire year. Instead, the UFC chose to match up the champ against Jiri Prochazka a second time in seven months at UFC 303 and went to the bottom of the barrel, picking out #8 ranked Khalil Rountree for Pereira’s UFC 307 clash.

But after the Rountree fight, the fans were absolutely and totally convinced that Ankalaev has to be next for ‘Poatan’. After all, there literally is no one else in the entire top ten who has a better case to fight for the title than the #1 ranked light heavyweight. Well, apparently not. At least, that is what Alex Pereira’s latest tweet makes it seem. “It won’t be Ankalaev ! 😭,” the Brazilian light heavyweight champ wrote on his official X account.

This, predictably, didn’t go down well with Ankalaev, who simply called ‘Poatan’ a “Chicken🐔🐔🐔” in reply to Pereira’s tweet, to most of the fans’ approval. Many feel that the reason Pereira has not faced Ankalaev yet is because of their stylistic matchup. ‘Poatan’, after all, is a pure striker.

So is Ankalaev. But he does have a ground game, which makes Pereira vulnerable to being taken down and mauled by the Dagestani. Since the Brazilian is the UFC’s golden goose at the moment, the feeling is that the promotion is wary of putting him in with Ankalaev, who may well beat him.

And Pereira’s latest tweet only confirms this impression. This, of course, raises a very important question- if not Ankalaev, then who? Well, there only seems to be one alternative.

UFC 311 could determine Alex Pereira’s next opponent

As we have already mentioned, no one in the top ten at the moment could fight Alex Pereira. All of them have either been beaten by ‘Poatan’ already, coming off losses, or not done enough to be considered for a title shot. But after January 18, we may have another contender. Former light heavyweight champions Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochzaka are set to clash at UFC 311 on the UFC’s first PPV card of 2025 on January 18.

The winner of their clash is the only person who can even have an argument about fighting Pereira for the title next. But there are a couple of problems with that. Prochazka has already fought Pereira twice and been stopped by the Brazilian without any trouble both times. Hill, on the other hand, has a much better claim, even though he has also fought Pereira in 2024.

But, ‘Sweet Dreams’ feels that ‘Poatan’ unfairly took advantage of a break in action at their UFC 300 clash to close the distance and knock him out. The former champ sees this as essentially cheating and has been angling for a rematch ever since. But first, he will have to get through Prochazka, which is probably what the UFC and even Pereira would be hoping for. After all, if ‘The Czech Samurai’ beats Hill and gets a third title shot so soon, it may cause the fans to riot. What do you think about Alex Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev’s back-and-forth on X?