“I was not surprised – I knew that Vadim could beat Corey Anderson,” Ankalaev said in an interview with the channel “Ushatayka”. “I was just worried that he might get tired. In the last fight, he got tired, and he didn’t succeed, but this time he didn’t let himself be knocked down, and it was clear that he was well prepared. I’m very happy that he won against a fighter like Cory.”
“The question of which of us is better, we cannot answer until we collide. We fought for a long time, then I won, but time has passed, he became the Bellator champion, and I have not yet become the UFC champion. But if I become a UFC champion, I think that for Russian MMA and the whole world, the fight between the Bellator champion and the UFC champion will be interesting. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.”
“If we evaluate the skills of Vadim Nemkov, then he is very good. Scored strong and shock and wrestling. I would like to see him in the UFC, where the top 5, top 10 fighters are stronger than in Bellator. It would be interesting. I think he won’t be in Bellator for long and we’ll see. Maximum through the fight, two, he will not have anyone to fight there. He will have to move to the UFC.”
Recall that Ankalaev has a victory over Nemkov, whom he won eight years ago in the extra round in the final of the Russian MMA Championship.
Magomed Ankalaev will fight his next fight on December 10 at UFC 282 in Las Vegas against Pole Jan Blachowicz, and the vacant UFC light heavyweight championship belt will be at stake.