Jamahal Hill isn’t letting Magomed Ankalaev butt past him in the contenders’ line.
Ankalaev recently ran his unbeaten streak to 12 straight fights with a second-round knockout of Johnny Walker and subsequently called for a shot at UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. In his post-fight scrum, Ankalaev said (via a Russian translator), “I think here the math works out, the way that I’m more deserving of the belt because I have 10 victories, six of them knockouts, and Jamahal Hill has eight fights total in the UFC. So it’s just clear that I’m a more deserving contender than Jamahal Hill.”
On his YouTube channel, Hill took aim at Ankalaev’s comments, questioning the logic behind the statement by suggesting that he’s had more recent success than Ankalaev.
“That’s some weird math to try to math,” Hill said. “First, Magomed, I get it, you want your dream to come true and things like that. You want to get back to a shot and you’re hungry. Like, bro is not very bright. He doesn’t do bright things. Nothing about his movement or motion or anything he does seems bright at all, so I’m not really surprised that he has a not-so-bright take on this whole thing. So let’s analyze this. Let’s look at our last four fights.
“Minus this Johnny Walker fight, you had a no-contest that you could have been disqualified for because you can’t seem to understand what the rules are, you can’t knee people in the head when they’re on the ground, as well as how you seem to always hit people in the back of the head. Like I said, not high IQ things, just in there swinging. So you go from no-contest, a draw, and you had a win before—the ninth win that you’re talking about, the guy broke his leg, shout out Anthony Smith—now Anthony Smith broke his leg. He injured himself in that fight. So it wasn’t like you went in and dominated that fight. It was an underwhelming performance, just like the draw, just like the fight before this last one.”
Hill has not competed since last January at UFC 283, where he scored a one-sided decision win over Glover Teixeira to claim a vacant light heavyweight title. Unfortunately for Hill, he suffered an Achilles injury the following summer that forced him to relinquish the title and has kept him on the sidelines.
It should be noted that while Hill is 4-0 in his past four and Ankalaev just 2-0-1 with a no-contest during that same stretch, five fights ago Hill suffered a TKO loss to Paul Craig. Coincidentally, Craig is the same opponent who beat Ankalaev in his UFC debut back in March 2018.
Regardless of how their résumés compare, Hill is confident that he’s done enough to make himself a must-see act inside the octagon, something that he doesn’t think applies to Ankalaev.
“So where in this math—see, we’re in the entertainment business,” Hill said. “You’re not entertaining. Nobody wants to watch you fight. Nobody’s rushing to pay for your pay-per-view. So whenever it comes down to that, exciting and people want to see fight, I guarantee more people want to see me fight than they want to see you fight. And in that alone, that math, is already killing you. My last four fights have been domination, finish, finish, finish. I’m the former champion. You were given the same chance to become champion and you s*** the bed. You couldn’t finish the job, you couldn’t do it, it wasn’t meant to be for you.
“Whenever I stepped up, I showed my true colors, and I showed that I was ready to step up and actually be a champion. You walk around with this fake entitlement like you’re supposed to just be crowned the champion and it’s just supposed to be for you. You had your chance, you blew it. Now you sit on the sidelines and you wait. You haven’t earned anything, you don’t deserve anything. The most you can earn is consideration of the spot that you’re in right now.”
