Fight Coverage
Coach Conversation | UFC 313: Pereira vs. Ankalaev
TUF Alum, UFC Vet, And MMA Coach Eliot Marshall Shares His Views On Saturday’s Light Heavyweight Main Event
Championship fights are layered battles, with the competitors stepping into the Octagon operating at the highest level in their respective weight classes.
Breaking down how these pivotal contests could possibly play out is a challenging venture, which is why UFC staff writer E. Spencer Kyte has taken to enlisting the help of some of the sharpest minds in the sport to help dissect these critical contests.
Ahead of this weekend’s light heavyweight championship clash between Alex Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev, Kyte sat down with TUF alum and UFC veteran Eliot Marshall, who now serves as the co-owner and head instructor at Easton Training Center in Denver, to discuss four key points of interest that could help define how the fight plays out.
Best Trait of Each Fighter
Kyte: Okay — let’s get into this. What’s the best trait of Alex Pereira and what’s the best trait of Magomed Ankalaev?
Marshall: C’mon dog. Pereira? He’s just that guy. He’s That Guy! How else do you say it?
Order UFC 313: Pereira vs Ankalaev
Kyte: Sure, and I know what you mean, but you’ve gotta gimme a little more here.
Marshall: Right, you want analysis. He’s gonna walk you down and kill you. He’s a fighter to his core. To his core that is who he is. He’s Khabib — “send location and date, and I will show up, I will try to kill you. I’m not going to try to win; I’m going to kill you.”
That’s his best trait. His striking is really good, his takedown defense and grappling has held up so far, he’s big, he’s strong; these are all really cool traits. But the best trait? The best trait is that he’s that guy.
Kyte: He’s a killing machine.
We see it before all of these fights with all the questions that come up. “What’s he doing still in Australia? It doesn’t look like he’s training. Is he gonna be ready?”
FOLLOW @UFCNEWS: On Facebook | On Instagram | On X | On Threads
He makes weight. He marches out to the Octagon, shoots his arrow at you, and then he clobbers you, and clearly enjoys it.
I’m in. Sign me up. Always.
Marshall: For Ankalaev, it’s that he’s well rounded. He’s very well-rounded; that’s his best trait.
Kyte: In a division like light heavyweight, how much added value is there to being as well-rounded as a guy like Ankalaev is? In lighter weight classes, you have to be or else you’re getting get beaten, but the further up the ladder we go, you can get away with “I’ve got one really good skill.”
ENTER NOW: Watch Forbes Video For Chance To Win Vegas Trip & Meet Dana White
He feels like a guy and the reason we’ve been waiting for this fight is “He’s got a couple good traits, he’s got a couple good weapons,” and that makes him more dangerous to me than say Jamahal Hill or Jiri Prochazka.
Marshall: Yeah, it does, but those guys kill more, and I think that’s Ankalaev’s downfall. He doesn’t kill, and you’re gonna have to really ride out “Poatan” if you don’t kill, and that could be very, very difficult.
Path to Victory for Each Fighter
Kyte: So on that note — what’s the path to victory for Ankalaev?
Marshall: Get Pereira on his back, and then figure out a way to kill.
I don’t know that fatigue will bother Pereira. I think he’s one of those guys.
Kyte: In that he’s got it if he needs it and can keep going and going?
Marshall: I think he’s one of those guys that has the MJ in him, the Kobe in him; Anderson during Anderson’s reign.
Kyte: The “this is what the situation is and we’ve got to figure it out” thing.
Marshall: Yeah. I think he’s got that in him.
Kyte: I think UFC 307 was the evidence of that. This dude is faster than I expected, he’s tougher than I expected, hanging around more than I expected, hitting me more than I expected; okay — how do we switch it up?
Get Your Tickets To UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes Here
He went southpaw a little more. He jabbed a little more.
Marshall: But it’s not a technical thing, Spence. He’ll figure out the technical. It’s the thing inside the greats that in their worst moments, it brings out the best of them.
Kyte: “The Flu Game.”
Marshall: 100 percent.
Kyte: “This is the one time where I can play terrible and just not have it tonight.”
Marshall: And no one can say s*** because you’re vomiting. You have the excuse, but instead… It’s Kobe walking out to shoot his free throws on a torn Achilles. “No man — I’m gonna shoot my free throws and then walk off the court, and there is no f****** way you’re helping me off the court, either.”
Get Ready For FPI 10: Card Preview, Rules, Scoring And More
It’s that.
Kyte: What’s Pereira’s path to victory?
Marshall: Walk him down and let him know who he’s in there with.
Show strikes up the middle, get your jab going, get some knees going so that it makes Ankalaeva little hesitant to shoot, so that he’s shooting off his heels, so that he’s shooting in a reactive way.
It’s that and then drag it into deep water. Either get him out of there easy and quick — which is always a possibility with “Poatan,” which he’s always looking to do — but don’t mind it going into deep water either.
Kyte: With Ankalaev, I agree that it’s “get him on the ground” because that neutralizes so many weapons. We think of him as this lights out wrestler because his name is Ankalaev and he’s from Dagestan…
UFC 313: View The Full Card | Buy Tickets | VIP Experiences
Marshall: But that’s not who he is.
Kyte: That’s not who he is at all. When that’s your best path to victory, how do you go out and implement the thing that is kind of Option B most of the time? How do you switch from Option A — which is that he wants to be in space, use his kicks, use his range; where wrestling can be a secondary option — to “I just need to wrestle from the jump and I need to be really good at it,” or is that not possible?
Marshall: I don’t think it’s happening. That’s what he needs to do, but he’s not gonna do it because there is too much ego in fighters.
Main Event Preview | UFC 313: Pereira vs Ankalaev
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
Main Event Preview | UFC 313: Pereira vs Ankalaev
/
Kyte: The other part of it is, how do you back a guy like Pereira up?
Marshall: I don’t know! (Laughs) You have to win angles, but no one has done it. Even when Izzy knocked him out he didn’t do it.
Kyte: Right — he backed up and said, “You come forward and I’ll get you.”
UFC LONDON: View The Full Card | Buy Tickets | VIP Experiences
Marshall: Yeah! He caught him, and it made for a great story, but he didn’t back him up.
Kyte: Khalil (Rountree Jr.) was really the only guy that got him backing up, and even that was from Khalil countering.
Marshall: That’s Khalil countering and being super-athletic. Ankalaev doesn’t have that.
How to do it? Everyone knows how to back someone up — you have to create angles; you have to make them miss and create angles. It’s not like anybody who watches fighting — there is no secret in terms of how to back people up — but he just doesn’t do it; he doesn’t go backwards.
You might back him up a step, but then he’s back on it.
Kyte: He may take two steps to reset, but he’s not somebody that anyone has pinned against the fence.
Marshall: The other way is action — a lot of heat coming their way — and that isn’t Ankalaeveither. He’s not a high-volume striker. Pereira isn’t either, but he walks you down.
Kyte: He’s not even a guy you want to be going at with a ton of stuff because he’ll just plant his feet and fire.
X Factor
Kyte: What, if anything, is the X-factor in this fight?
Marshall: Look, there are all these stories and questions about is he training and all like that, yada yada, and I think that’s the X-factor.
Is he believing his own hype a little bit too much? Because the fight game is vengeful, and if you cross it in any way, you’re gonna pay.
Hill vs Rountree Jr Set To Headline KC Return
Kyte: It’s weird to me that he was in Australia at the start of February.
Marshall: The fight game is vengeful, and a lot of champions seem to get caught by it. That’s what makes Jon Jones so special, makes Khabib so special, makes Georges (St-Pierre) so special is that they had long reigns — even Izzy didn’t have a long enough reign where you can put him in that category because the fight game caught him.
And it’s more mental than anything.
Alex Pereira | Top Finishes
Unlock MORE of your inner combat sports fan with UFC Fight Pass! Fighting is what we live for. And no one brings you MORE live fights, new shows, and events across multiple combat sports from around the world. With a never-ending supply of fighting in every discipline, there’s always something new to watch. Leave it to the world’s authority in MMA to bring you the Ultimate 24/7 platform for MORE combat sports, UFC Fight Pass!
Alex Pereira | Top Finishes
/
The thing that could bite Pereira is that he is this good. We saw it with Anderson. He’s f****** around against Chris Weidman. He should have killed Chris Weidman — and I’m a Chris Weidman fan — but he was f****** around, not respecting the game too many times, and then BOOM, gets caught.
Kyte: And then it never comes back.
Marshall: And then it’s over, never comes back.
Fiziev Steps In To Fight Gaethje At UFC 313
This game is so unkind, and almost no one gets out unscathed. We’ll see what happens.
Kyte: It makes sense that it catches champions, too, because everyone that’s on the chase, you’re still on the chase and you’ve gotta respect it.
Marshall: You’re not the baddest dude in the world yet. But when you’re the baddest dude in the world — we’re talking about a two-division champion in eight fights, and so what must that feel like?
Kyte: And the one time he got caught, he said, “Enough with this weight cut, I’m gonna go up,” and he really hasn’t been touched.
Marshall: They’re not close fights. Everyone is asleep at the end of them.
Kyte: So it makes sense that you think, “I can be in Australia at the start of February and beat this guy at the start of March.”
One Coaching Curiosity
Kyte: Okay, so what’s the one curiosity point here for you?
Marshall: The curious part for me is I wanna see if “Poatan” can keep this going. I love greatness; that’s the curious part of it for me.
Kyte: This sport, more than any other, we have this weird relationship with extended success and prolonged success, but we also have a frustration with constant turnover. We hate it when a belt is changing hands all the time, but we also start getting bored when someone gets to two or three title defenses.
Your Name on the Canvas – Be Part of UFC History Inside the Octagon
Personally, I loved watching Amanda Nunes beat the hell out of everyone she faced, the same way I really enjoyed Michael Jordan winning all of those championships or LeBron being in the finals year-after-year.
Marshall: But it’s like if the Ray Lewis Ravens won the Super Bowl every year. That was cool for one year, but if every year…
Kyte: If every year, the defense just swallows up the other team and it’s 13-3…
Marshall: If every Super Bowl was that, we’d complain.
Kyte: It feels like in MMA we enjoy it for the first two, and when it comes to the third…
Marshall: I disagree. I think people love “Poatan,” because he’s killing; he’s killing.
UFC Returns To Montreal For The First Time In 10 Years For UFC 315
Kyte: I think “Poatan” is different.
Marshall: We love him because he’s killing. We love Islam because he’s killing. We love Topuria because he’s killing.
UFC 313: Pereira vs Ankalaev took place live from T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 8, 2025. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!