Magomed Ankalaev has admitted that Ali Abdelaziz composes the tweets on the UFC light heavyweight champion's X account but everything is done in a collaborative sense. This has become part of the narrative leading into Ankalaev's light heavyweight title rematch with the man he claimed the crown from Alex Pereira. Leading into their UFC 320 main event clash on October 4th, Pereira has accused Ankalaev of not running his social media account.
The former two division titleholder intimated that the Russian champion was a bit of a shrinking violet when 'Poatan' confronted him about some of the online trash talk that Pereira claims actually came from Ali Abdelaziz. During a recent interview with Mike Heck of MMA Fighting, Magomed Ankalaev addressed some of these sentiments as Ankalaev said,
You know, I don't know what he's referring to because I am constantly on in communication with my manager Ali. We always talk about things. If somebody's throwing a challenge out or somebody says something in my direction, we discuss it."
"We hash it out and we figure out what we have to write and then he puts it into a tweet. Never has he ever written anything without my consent. We're constantly in communication."
"So there's not one tweet, not one writing that came out that I wasn't aware of that was done behind my back. We always do stuff together.
Magomed Ankalaev's manager and why he draws the ire of Alex Pereira
Magomed Ankalaev's managher Ali Abdelaziz courts controversy frequently and it doesn't seem like the Brazilian standout is a fan of his behaviour. This was something that the former Glory Kickboxing and UFC champion touched on while appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show, as Pereira stated [via Bloody Elbow],
Honestly, I don’t know Ali’s story. I don’t know his background. But we know that he seems to be a guy that likes to be in the media. Even now, we start talking about Ankalaev and then his name came out."
"The way that he carries himself — I don’t know about his past, but he carries himself like he was a super MMA champion that retired and now is a super manager but still wants to be relevant and stay in the media."
"He seems to be a guy that was used to fame, stopped fighting, but now keeps trying to show up, using his fighters. Everybody sees that.
