Alex
Pereira will defend his light heavyweight crown against
Magomed
Ankalaev in the UFC 313
main event on March 8.
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The promotion announced the booking during the UFC 311
broadcast on Saturday night. Additionally, Justin
Gaethje will square off against Dan Hooker in
a five-round, co-main event clash. UFC 313 takes place at the
T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
While Pereira recently hinted that he wouldn’t be facing Ankalaev
next, perhaps that was a bit of gamesmanship from the popular
Brazilian. A former
UFC middleweight champion, “Poatan” is 5-0 since moving up to
205 pounds. He claimed the vacant light heavyweight belt with a
second-round stoppage of Jiri
Prochazka at UFC 295 and has since defended the strap with
successive stoppages against Jamahal
Hill, Prochazka and Khalil
Rountree.
Ankalaev, meanwhile, is unbeaten in his last 13 Octagon
appearances. His initial shot at championship gold came against
Jan
Blachowicz at UFC 282, but the bout ended in a split draw. The
32-year-old Dagestani owns notable triumphs over the likes of
Aleksandar
Rakic, Johnny
Walker, Anthony
Smith, Thiago
Santos, Nikita
Krylov and Volkan Oezdmir.
Gaethje will be returning for the first time since relinquishing
the BMF title to Max
Holloway in a fifth-round KO loss at UFC 300. Prior to that,
the ex-World
Series of Fighting champion had earned back-to-back wins over
Dustin
Poirier and Rafael
Fiziev.
After losing four of five outings from June 2020 to March 2022,
Hooker has enjoyed a resurgence of late. The 34-year-old
City Kickboxing representative has rebounded to win three
straight bouts, besting Claudio
Puelles, Jalin
Turner and Mateusz
Gamrot to re-establish himself as a person of interest at 155
pounds.