Alex Pereira to defend title against a guy ranked 8th. WHY?

UFC's decisions don't make a lot of sense to me a lot of the time but this one is truly bizarre. Why on earth would they book the 8th ranked guy for a title defense for Pereira who has been showing that he is more than capable of fighting almost anyone. He first round KO'd Jamahal Hill and then really worked over Jiri Prochazka in a surprise fashion that truly solidified Alex as the one to watch these days. So when I heard he was going to headline UFC 307 I was excited until they announced his opponent... Khalil Rountree, who is ranked number 8 in the world and is going into this thing as one of the most massive underdogs we have seen on a main event in a long time at -520 in favor of Pereira. This is just what the odds are NOW too, as we get closer to the date I expect that it will get even higher as Vegas hedges their bets.

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The only thing I can even surmise as to why Rountree was chosen is because he is seriously ripped and can take punches. Well, he HAS taken punches but Pereira is a different kind of animal as he recently recorded the hardest punch of all time at 191,796 units of power. The machine is complicated and is called PowerKube and I don't know how it works but to put things into perspective the previous record holder was Francis Ngannau and his punch was 129,161 units. Basically if Pereira gets his hands on you it doesn't matter how much you can "take a punch," you are going down.

That's a fun video that starts out with Tom Aspinall failing to even get 50,000 units. Basically if Alex Pereira gets a hold of anyone, it's gonna be lights out.

Now bypassing 2 guys in the top 10 is understandable because it is too soon to give Hill or Jiri another shot because Pereira already bested both of them in the past year, but why bypass the other 6? We have Blankowicz and Ankalaev ranked 4th and 2nd respectively and both of them faced off in 2022 that resulted in a disappointing and rare draw. Blankowicz was already bested by Pereira as well, but that was well over a year ago. Ankalaev has never face Pereira and is currently ranked number 2 in the world. I can't wrap my head around why they wouldn't offer the chance to him. Anakalaev is unbeaten in 12 fights with his lone loss being his first one in UFC.

There are many out there that are claiming that UFC is "protecting their golden goose" by not giving this matchup and even Daniel Cormier, who is probably contractually obligated to not be too critical of anything UFC does, has expressed some less than flattering ideas as to why Ankalaev is being ignored when it comes to the championship belt.

Because what the UFC is kind of saying here is we’ve got this star. We know that this guy here could be a real potential issue for that star. They will fight eventually, but they will fight when we have no other option. I like it.”

his "I like it" at the end of the statement is likely something that he is being compelled to say, rather than actually feeling it. If the UFC was interested in having the real best of the best in the Octagon for a match, Ankalaev would be in there but instead we are getting Rountree Jr.

The last person that Rountree Jr has faced was Anthony Smith, who is a bit of a legend in the sport and has been around for a very long time. Some, such as myself, would say that he has been around for too long and is merely a stepping stone for UFC to use as cannon fodder for up-and-comers.

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This fight happened back in at the end of 2023 and if you didn't know that it happened you are not alone as it was on a Fight Night card and wasn't even the main event.

Rountree is no doubt delighted to get a chance at championship gold but once again I feel like UFC is doing what they always do and that is to maximize their income rather than give us the fights that would truly determine who the best in the world is. People believe that since Ankalaev has a very strong wrestling game that he would stand a chance not just to beat Pereira but to maybe even embarrass him in the process. Ankalaev doesn't have the star-power than Pereira does and not many people would be enthusiastic about him as champion.

People would be similarly unenthusiastic about Rountree Jr as champion but that's the thing, nobody really believes that he has a chance in hell of actually making that happen. This is going to be tough for UFC to hype this card up because it just seems a bit silly that we aren't going to see the best possible person facing off against the champ.

Thankfully the rest of the card is pretty great and for me I am particularly looking forward to seeing Aljamain Sterling hopefully getting beaten again so we can go ahead and get the most boring fighter of all time properly out of the top-10 and possibly out of the spotlight forever.