Alex Pereira is currently the UFC’s merchant of doom with his concussive fists and relentless power. His fights hardly go the distance, which has made people wonder if there is any way to beat him, especially at 205lbs. Well, former UFC double champion and analyst Daniel Cormier recently revealed the tactics he would employ if he was the fighter standing opposite Alex Pereira in a hypothetical bout.

For the unversed, the Brazilian is making his return at UFC 313, where he’ll be putting his 205-pound title up for the fourth time against Magomed Ankalaev. Having gotten the better of the strikers in the division, he’ll be going up against a wrestler, much like Cormier. ‘DC’ claims that ‘Poatan’ could suffer against a grappler because if he was fighting Pereira, he’d have tried to take the game to the ground as soon as he heard the bell ring.

“I swear to God, if I was fighting Alex Pereira, I would shoot on him from the moment the fight started,” Daniel Cormier told Ben Askren on his YouTube channel. “I will go forward, press, throw, like, a left hand or an overhand right, just dive it on his legs as much as I could just to try to see how his takedown defense would hold up.”

However, Cormier isn’t counting out the fact that Alex Pereira is pretty aware of his weakness. He’s been taking care of his ground game under the tutelage of his mentor and former UFC champion, Glover Teixeira. “He’s got to have gotten better, right? He’s been training with Glover all these years in the wrestling,” the former double champion added.

While fans believe that Ankalaev would truly test Pereira because of his wrestling, the light heavyweight champion recently revealed that he’s ready for the challenge. In fact, it was he who asked for this fight to happen. Here’s what the Brazilian had to say.

Alex Pereira claims to have asked the UFC to face Magomed Ankalaev

For months, Magomed Ankalaev insinuated that Alex Pereira was trying to avoid fighting him. But ‘Poatan’ has always denied that and to prove that he didn’t try to ‘duck’ the Russian star, he recently claimed that he rang Dana White and Co. up to book the fight against Ankalaev.

Pereira actually wanted to take a break for some time, but when he started training, he felt well enough to make a return at UFC 313 and the Russian star’s recent dig at him just fired him up even more. “I called my managers right away. I said I wanna fight. I wanna fight [in] March. I wanna fight Ankalaev,” Alex Pereira told ESPN’s MMA analyst Megan Olivi. “I know he keeps saying that I’m just an employee of the UFC. I fight whenever they want but I asked for him. I told them when I wanna fight.”

Well, the fight is finally announced, and it will be interesting to if Magomed Ankalaev can beat Alex Pereira by putting Daniel Cormier’s gameplan to use. Or maybe he has something up his sleeves. Either way, it will be an exciting fight, especially due to the clash of two different-styled high-level fighters. What are your predictions? Tell us in the comment section below!