Jan Blachowicz is taking a look at the middleweight division.
Leading up to one of the biggest fights of his career, former light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz took some downtime and spoke about a couple of other UFC divisions. Blachowicz will be facing Magomed Ankalaev for the 205-pound strap in the main event of UFC 282 in just a week. He knows all the hard work and time it takes to lock down a game plan and the difficulty in executing it inside the cage. While watching UFC 281, Blachowicz saw an aspect of newly crowned champion Alex Pereira’s game that could use some work.
Alex Pereira scored a huge fifth-round TKO over Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 to become the new UFC middleweight champion. He seemed to be losing on the scorecards all through the fight before landing a fury of shots and having the referee step in to call the bout. Now the contenders have been calling for a shot at the new champion, maybe none louder than Khamzat Chimaev.
Jan Blachowicz thinks Khamzat Chimaev’s wrestling may be too much for Alex Pereira
Chimaev has been calling for a tile shot. He believes he has what it takes to put a stop to Pereira. Much has been said of Pereira’s performance at UFC 281, but Blachowicz is taking a closer look at the wrestling.
Coming into the bout with Adesanya, few thought either man would shoot for a takedown. In fact, it was Pereira who attempted to take down Adesanya but was out-wrestled by the former champion. Blachowicz finds this very telling and thinks the wrestling-heavy Chimaev will be too much for the former kickboxing Pereira.
“No, I think Khamzat is the most dangerous fighter other than Adesanya for Alex Pereira,” Blachowicz said in an interview with Helen Yee. “If Izzy could take down Pereira and control him on the ground almost one round, so for Khamzat that will be not the problem you know? But we’ve got amazing standup in very big guy like Pereira but I think that if they do the fight so Khamzat will win.”
Chimaev and Pereira both seem interested in the fight but the date of when it should happen is not clear. Perhaps this summer fans will get a chance to see this striker vs. wrestler inside the Octagon for the gold UFC belt.
