Jamahal Hill has been feeling pretty vindicated in the wake of Magomed Ankalaev’s victory over Alex Pereira at UFC 313 on Saturday night.
Former UFC light heavyweight champion Hill (12-3 MMA, 6-3 UFC) had picked Ankalaev (21-1-1 MMA, 12-1-1 UFC) while previewing the fight on his channel last week. With Hill having been knocked out by Pereira (12-3 MMA, 9-2 UFC) at UFC 300 last year, many fans had accused "Sweet Dreams" of being swayed by the bad blood that result created between the pair. Not so, Hill insisted.
“I’m going to toot my own horn on this,” Hill said in a video this week on his YouTube channel. “I did my breakdown. I felt like I did a really good breakdown, breaking down each side, gave my unbiased opinion of what I saw from everything – and it turned out to be right. Everybody called me a hater, said I was hating and all these other things, which is like crazy.”
Saturday's result, which saw Ankalaev emerge victorious on all three judge's scorecards, was a major talking point in the aftermath of the event. Many felt that "Poatan" should have got the nod, something Hill disagrees with.
“I feel Magomed did enough to win,” Hill said. “Pereira had small moments. There was no real big moment. What moment was there where he actually landed his shot, and it had its effect? Whenever Magomed hit him on the couple of instances where he was able to time a counter and hit Pereira and knock him backwards. We didn’t see many of those. Plus Pereira wore the damage a little bit more on his face than Ankalaev did.”
Hill went on to stress that he has no ill will toward Pereira, despite their very public spat after UFC 300..
“Like I was saying, I was right, ya’ll was wrong,” Hill said. “People have asked me if I’m happy Alex lost. No, I’m not happy that Alex lost. I mean, I didn’t really care one way or the other. Alex is a big star, he brings a lot of attention to our division, so we all gain something from him being the champion. It’s now Ankalaev’s turn to try and build that star before I get up there and put these things (knuckles) on him.”
