Carlos Ulberg says his time spent mimicking Brazilian superstar Alex Pereira — and for a team that has already devoted countless hours to the task of beating him — can only help in any “historical” showdown for the UFC light heavyweight title.
The declaration comes as the fighter dubbed ‘Black Jag’ now inserts himself into what is quickly becoming a bizarre UFC title narrative.
Fresh off his huge KO win against Dominick Reyes at UFC Perth, Ulberg is jetting into Las Vegas over the next 48 hours for this Sunday’s hyped UFC 320 title rematch between Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev, who took the title from ‘Poatan’ back in March.
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Already, the UFC headliners have enjoyed an entertaining fight week build complete with verbal stoushes via Google translator, UFC Performance Institute dramas, even accusations of managers tweeting for their clients.
Now Ulberg is set to inject himself into the narrative too — arriving into Las Vegas to not only sit cageside for the event, but demand he gets the next shot and whoever wins.
And should that be Pereira? Well, the storylines are everywhere.
Speaking with Fox Sports Australia this week, the Aucklander confirmed he has previously played the role of Pereira while helping close mate Israel Adesanya prepare for what were his own two hyped title bouts against the star.
Adesanya, of course, is forever linked to Pereira thanks to four separate bouts across kickboxing and MMA, including two inside the Octagon where The Last Stylebender initially lost the title before then winning it back in devastating fashion.
And helping prepare Adesanya for it all was Ulberg, who agreed that having a team that has already twice fought Pereira will only help his cause should the pair throw down next up.
Quizzed on if he had been asked to replicate Pereira during Adesanya’s previous camp preparations, Ulberg said: “I have to an extent, yeah.
“And while as fighters we’re all obviously all on our own missions, helping prepare for a guy like Alex Pereira is something I’ve done.
“But of course, every fight is different.
“And if I am to fight Pereira, it would be different to the fights Israel had.”
But being part of those preparations, and a team that has already put two fights worth of study into the UFC superstar, can only be beneficial, right?
“Oh, it would definitely be helpful, for sure,” Ulberg conceded.
After taking less than a round to ice Reyes in Perth, Ulberg was asked who he would prefer to face out of two men headlining UFC 320.
“Both guys would be massive, for sure,” he said.
“Fighting Pereira would be historical.
“He’s got a big following, everyone loves the guy, and finishing someone like him would be awesome.
“Even fighting someone like him would be great.
“But then when you look at Ankalaev, who has beaten Pereira, you beat him and it means nobody can touch you.
“That’s what I want.
“I want to make sure I beat the best.
“If you want to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man.
“And right now I am the man.
“I don’t even have a title and I’m the man.”
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Elsewhere, Ankalaev has once again ramped up the growing fight week feud between himself and Pereira, branding the title challenger a liar for suggesting he was hiding from him at the UFC Performance Institute.
“When I heard that that’s what he said, I was perplexed,” Ankalaev told MMA Fighting through a translator.
“I was confused. Why would he even say that?
“If you look at the last fight, I bullied him in the fight. I pressured him.
“He was running away from me the entire fight.
“I won the fight. I became champion. So why would I be hiding from him?
“So when I saw the statement that that’s what he said, that I hid from him (at the gym), I just wanted to understand from his mouth – why is it that he said that?”
Which is why, the champ said, he then found out exactly when Pereira was training next.
“So I found out what times he’s there, I walked out, and there he was with his team,” he continued.
“And I asked him, ‘You were looking for me? You said I was hiding. Well, here I am. You found me. So why were you saying that?’
“And then he couldn’t really explain himself.
“Then he started doing all sorts of things like, ‘I don’t know, the lady said, the girl said, somebody said.’
“I didn’t even care to listen to any of that explanation because there I was confronting him right in front of his face, and he had no answer for why he told everybody that I was hiding from him.”