Robert Whittaker urges Magomed Ankalaev to wrestle Alex Pereira

Robert Whittaker has urged Magomed Ankalaev to use his wrestling in his huge title fight against Alex Pereira at UFC 313 this weekend.

On Saturday night, Magomed Ankalaev will challenge Alex Pereira for the UFC light heavyweight championship. As we know, this is easily the biggest fight of his career to date. He’s been in there with some tough guys in the past, but nobody quite like ‘Poatan’.

RELATED: Alex Pereira plans to showcase his own grappling skills against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313

Ankalaev himself has insisted that he wants to test his skills on the feet with Pereira. Others, however, have advised against such an idea.

In a recent episode of his podcast, Robert Whittaker weighed in on what he’d advise Ankalaev to do if he was coaching him.

Whittaker’s advice for Ankalaev

“If I’m coaching Ankalaev, I want him dropping to both knees and shooting from across the cage,” Whittaker said on his “MMArcade” podcast. “I want him like, army crawling to Pereira’s ankles. We’re blanketing him for 25 minutes. We need to slow him down, or we need to get him to a position where he’s uncomfortable. We need to start making threat levels elsewhere.

“Because you see every standup fight Pereira is in, every single one of them, even when he’s hurt, even when he’s getting hit like when he was with Rountree. He’s just comfortable there. He will stay there. He’ll be there till the crowds leave. Like he’s so comfortable and confident in that position, in that dynamic of fighting, that it’s silly to fight him there.”

Quotes via MMA Junkie

It’s tough to know for sure what direction Ankalaev is going to go in with this fight. Either way, though, nobody is expecting him to go in there and just walk through the champion.

Who are you backing to get the job done on Saturday night? Let us know your thoughts, BJPENN Nation!