Thiago Santos is struggling to find answers for his loss to Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC Fight Night 203 main event.
Santos (22-10 MMA, 14-9 UFC) suffered a unanimous decision loss to Ankalaev (17-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in Saturday’s light heavyweight headliner at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. It was his fourth defeat in his past five fights, and has the 38-year-old pondering what comes next.
Although Santos’ run of defeats came exclusively to the highest level of opponents in former champ Jon Jones, current champ Glover Teixeira and a pair of top contenders in Aleksandar Rakic and Ankalaev, the Brazilian expects better results out of himself.
Santos didn’t offer any excuses as to why he didn’t get his hand raised, but expressed gratitude for everyone who helped him prepare for the fight.
No words about yesterday, no excuses, another hard and painful defeat.
Still, my faith in God remains unshakable and my gratitude to him, my family, my friends, coaches and true fans only increases, thank you for everything.
Santos landed a knockdown on Ankalaev in the third round of the fight that proved to be the most impactful blow of an underwhelming 25-minute contest. He showed a reluctance to pull the trigger for a majority of the matchup, though, and came out on the wrong end of the scorecards.
The Brazilian has struggled to regain the form he showed prior to and during a July 2019 title fight with Jones at UFC 239, where he fought who many consider to be the greatest fighter in MMA history to a split decision. Santos suffered serious knee injuries in the fight that required surgery, and he’s been unable to get any momentum back since.
