Oh I don’t think you’d have to worry about Ankalaev holding him down, he would probably finish him down there if it’s gets there and he can keep him there. But maybe Pereira should do something about it if he were to be wrestled. It’s mixed martial arts, emphasis on mixed. You can’t make the top of one division Glory Kickboxing just because he’s champ. Like if the fighter has a weakness that Dana thinks is that exploitable then maybe he doesn’t deserve the title of best light heavyweight in the world
What they don’t want is Ankalaev to be LHW champ for the next fight- although idk why they wouldn’t. You can just rebook Pereira for a rematch and the card is carried. And if he beats Pereira twice then you have a guy who is now all of a sudden mainstream.
It’s fine and all if they wanna be entertainment and not sport. But again it’s one of the things Dana always criticized boxing for- promoters keeping their cash cows away from fights they could lose so we rarely see the actual best of the best fight each other. Like this is the who guy ranted about Otto Wallin fighting Fury for the belt instead of a matchup against one of the actual top guys, that’s an example he gave when talking about how boxing is broken. Well what exactly are you doing right now at 205 Dana? Rountree’s best win is a diminished Smith. Ankalaev finished Smith who was coming off 3 straight finish victories at the time. He’s beaten Santos, Oezdemir, Krylov. He murdered Walker, Cutelaba, Prachnio, and Lungiambula. He has some incredibly violent finishes. To me it’s not really even that debatable, he deserved the last one and he deserves the next one too. Especially if he beats Rakic (who I do not think Rountree would beat btw)
