see, i don't count Rob or Paulo as grapplers. i count them as strikers who COULD grapple. Hermansson is a grappler but he's not strong or really good at takedowns. Vettori is the only one but i doubt he'd shoot a takedown without first testing the striking. even Brunson sucks. when i say grappler i mean a guy whose main strategy is to get you on the ground and grind away. like all of those guys COULD grapple Pereira, but i also can see them getting ktfo before even trying to grapple. if you count all those guys as grapplers then Pereira did face a grappler, Strickland. but just like Strickland i think a lot of those guys wouldn't start the fight off with a bunch of takedown pressure.
i want to see him vs someone who is like Cain in the 2nd JDS fight who do not care about ego striking with him or care about how exciting the fight is, all they want to do is win and will threaten the takedowns early and often. there isn't really anyone like that at MW and LHW. the best grappler at LHW, Ankalaev, has explicitly said he wouldn't take him down. it's because of stupid shit like that is why Pereira never got tested in the grappling. Strickland could've done that. he could've got the clinch and made it tough. he could've tried to drag him down to the ground, but he did none of that he just stood there and tried to kickbox him.
the other part is Pereira left MW when DDP became champion and i think DDP would've tried to take him down.
Brunson sucks, but so does Pereira's grappling, especially when he was still making his way to the first Izzy fight. It definitely would be a winnable fight for Pereira, but obviously the UFC didn't want to risk it. It would have still been better than no grappler at all.
I think Rob learned his lesson from the first Izzy fight to not try to just stand up witha guy at that level. So I don't think he'd pull a Strickland. Hermanson would definitely be the weakest choice.
I could also see Paulo going for a more grappling heavy plan. He also learned from his Izzy fight and Alex is much more willing to engage than Izzy is, which would make a grappling plan more viable.
They chose Strickland because they knew he would pull a Strickland, or at least they had a very strong suspicion. I don't see it as much of a guarantee that all the other guys would let their egos (that is not actually the right word, though society uses it that way so I'm going with it now, for convenience)/pride take over. Jan didn't and the dude is a champion kickbokser. Jamahal is much less experienced than the other guys, except for Paulo. But Jamahal has much more stopping power in his hands than Paulo. So the allure of just landing that one big punch is much bigger for Jamahal, than Paulo. Dude was overconfident because he also got his title shot too early and his only loss came to Graig, which is easy for fans and fighters to dismiss as a fluke, lol. So the dude was just feeling himself a bit too much. All the other guys have had enough setbacks to be a bit more realistic with their flaws and weaknesses
And of course I would love to see him vs a real beast grappler like Chimaev on fucking Brock's lifetime of PED cycles lol. (Not seriously, of course. I don't want to destroy Chimaev's body lol) . But there were enough guys who on paper could pose real grappling challenges. But they didn't go with those guys, so in that way things fell his way.
As for Ank, I think there is a big chance he is just bluffing to lure Alex and the UFC into a false sense of security. Remember, he still has to convince the UFC, too, that they need to give him the shot.
