No more pretty words or talk of mercy. Jiri Prochazka is laying out his UFC loss as simply as possible.
“I didn’t give the performance that I wanted,” he told reporters in the Czech Republic upon his arrival home. “I literally f–ked it up.”
Prochazka faced Carlos Ulberg for the vacant UFC light heavyweight belt at UFC 327 and seemed moments away from a big win after Ulberg visibly blew his knee out early in the first round. But rather than focus on Ulberg’s injured leg, Prochazka waded in for a proper
knockout and got hit with a left hook that dropped him to the canvas. The one-legged Ulberg did not hesitate to finish Prochazka with ground and pound moments later (watch the highlights here).
Following the loss, Prochazka said a lot of things about his errors, attributing them to ‘mercy.’ We’d attribute them to bad fight IQ and Jiri’s habit of leaving his hands way down, something Ulberg was capitalizing on before his injury because it’s such a well known hole in Prochazka’s game.
“I won’t make excuses about some pity or compassion for him,” Prochazka said at the airport. “I know that at that moment, I no longer worked at one hundred percent. That then cost me the victory. I want to eat this up here until the worst end, so that I can, with all these emotions, with this feeling, go further and go for that title again.”
Prochakza has that Dana White Privilege and has already been given four shots at the 205 pound belt in as many years. Why not a fifth for an interim, with Carlos Ulberg potentially out for a year with his injured knee?
“I talked with the UFC management, they are open towards all sorts of other alternatives, whether just some interesting fight or just jump for title shot,” Jiri said. “I am not saying yet, nothing is confirmed yet. However, I know after this performance I will no longer be the same and give these performances that I gave. After this experience, I will be stronger than ever before, and I’ll bring that title back to the Czech Republic.”
