Former UFC light-heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka may have suffered two TKO losses in his last three fights to current titleholder Alex Pereira, but he still harbors an ambition to fight him for a third time.
“You know, maybe I’ll sound crazy or whatever, but believe me, I’m working on [becoming] the champion,” Prochazka told MMAFighting. “[The] champion right now is Alex. But right now, I’m focusing [on] what’s before me. What’s the next step? Right now, it’s Jamahal Hill. Next, we will see who will be the champion.
“If that will be Alex, for me right now — if there will be a questions about the fight with Alex — that will be for me, really, the fight for my life.”
Prochazka was first TKO’d in the 2nd round by Pereira in November of last year in a fight for the at-the-time vacant belt, and then bounced back with a TKO victory over Aleksander Rakic in April, before succumbing to another 2nd round TKO defeat to Pereira in June.
As such a third encounter with the Brazilian ace seems unlikely at this stage, but given that he’s still the No.2 contender in the division, if he can beat another ex-champ in Hill at UFC 311 then it’ll still at least remain a possibility for some stage in the future.
And if they do ever cross paths again then Prochazka believes what he learned from their previous fights will stand him in good stead.
“I took the best from that,” Prochazka said of their last fight. “It was not too much about like that performance in the night, but about the preparation for that fight and I had to change many, many things. So the last few months, I really worked on that, what to, what to do, what not to do, what not to repeat. So here I am and ready for the next fight.
“Every loss, every win is the main point of the career. So every battle, doesn’t matter if it is a win. Win or lose, there is always the chance to take the best from that experience from every fight.”
