It’s going to be a little while before we see newly-crowned UFC Light Heavyweight champion Carlos Ulberg back in action.
Last weekend (Sat., April 11, 2026) in the UFC 327 main event, Ulberg took on Jiri Prochazka for the vacant 205-pound crown. After an early feeling out process. Ulberg stepped back while punching and clearly injured his knee badly. From that point forward, he was unstable on his feet and falling all over the place. Prochazka appeared conflicted for a moment, moved in for the kill,
and then walked into a counter left hook from hell (watch it here).
It was a truly shocking way to become a UFC champion, but Ulberg’s injury doesn’t exactly set him up to immediately defend his new crown. Less than a week after winning gold, Ulberg posted on his Instagram story that he’d undergone knee surgery. He posted a picture seated in a hospital bed (see above) with the caption, “Knee surgery done.”
Ulberg has yet to comment on exactly what operation he underwent or what ligaments were torn. There has been a lot of speculation that Ulberg has torn his ACL, which would mean roughly a year on the sidelines at minimum. When fighters continue to fight through a knee injury, however, it often results in further and extensive damage, as the ACL is responsible for stability that the other ligaments cannot fully compensate for. For example, Thiago Santos blew up basically every major ligament in his knee during his five-round fight versus Jon Jones after hurting it midway through the bout.
Hopefully, Ulberg’s injury is less catastrophic and will offer a quicker return. Unless he opts to reveal the details, however, all we can really say is that the 35-year-old knockout artist is on the road to recovery.
