Carlos Ulberg wants the best Jiri Prochazka that has ever competed, and he knows the dangers attached to that wish.
Ulberg faces Prochazka for the vacant light heavyweight title in the main event of Saturday’s UFC 327 fight card in Miami. While “Black Jag” is trying to stay on task and stay focused on Prochazka, he can’t help but picture what winning a world title would mean to him.
“Yeah, everything,” Ulberg told MMA Fighting. “It’s everything that you’ve worked for. You’ve put all your time and your effort
into this moment for that belt to be around your waist and become the champion of the world, and that’s essentially why I’m in this game, is to be the best
“And I want to fight the best. I want to fight Jiri at his best. I hope he’s the fittest. I hope he’s strong. I hope he comes and gives his A-game, brings the fire. Bring it to me. I want it. I want it like that. I want to get that win over the best Jiri. So come Saturday night, I think that me having that belt around my waist, it’s just going to be a little sweeter when it’s a tough fight.”
After losing his octagon debut after being a super-hyped talent coming off of Dana White’s Contender Series, Ulberg has done nothing but win ever since — going 9-0 over his past nine fights.
There were a lot of doubters early on in his UFC career, and some have continued to doubt Ulberg along the way, but there has never been a chip on his shoulder.
“For me, I think my biggest thing is just proving myself right, proving my followers, my family, my training partners, my coaches, proving them right,” Ulberg explained. “And [it’s about] making them proud, making my family proud, making my kids proud, and it’s looking them in the eye and knowing that their dad’s a champion, knowing that their brother’s a champion, and motivating them, inspiring them to be great, too.
“So, for me, that’s what picks me up every single morning, and that’s what gets me going. I don’t care about what these guys, what everyone else says on social media. People are now too focused on three, four-second videos, and they think that when they see a quick video that they believe that. It’s so immersed in a TikTok kind of view that, that they don’t watch the storyline. They don’t care to watch a storyline. They don’t care to watch a full movie. Their attention span is quite small, so I’m not too worried about that.
“I’m here to do my thing, and pick up that belt and leave.”
Prochazka enters the octagon on a two-fight win streak, with knockout wins over Jamahal Hill and Khalil Rountree. In fact, the only fighter to defeat Prochazka in the UFC is Pereira.
For Ulberg, he knew this matchup with Prochazka would come, and he is prepared for everything — and because of that, Ulberg sees his night ending with gold around his waist and a new stability to the UFC light heavyweight division.
“I’m not worried about the headlines, man,” Ulberg said. “I just want to go in there and make sure I go and stay focused [on] my job, keep my head intact, and walk out of there alive, man. That’s it. …
“I’ve always had the belief that I’m going to be the champion. I’ve always wanted to be the champion of the world and become that guy at the top of that mountain, sitting at the top of the mountain where people want to try and take it off me. They can try.
“But I think the main thing is just going in there and, and getting this job first, getting this thing done first, and then once I’ve done that, then I think I’ll just take it one fight at a time. So I think it’s going to be interesting this week. This week is going to be an interesting week.”
