To the naked eye, it appeared that Jiri
Prochazka deserved a little more time to recover against
Alex
Pereira in the UFC
295 main event.
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Prochazka was hurt by a short left hook from his foe in the second
stanza, which prompted the Czech Republic native to shoot for a
takedown. From there, Pereira transitioned to a series of hard
elbows to the side of the head, and Prochazka toppled backward to
the canvas with his Brazilian foe on top of him.
At that point, veteran official Marc Goddard
had seen enough, and he waved off the light heavyweight title bout
at the 4:08 mark of Round 2. Prochazka still appeared to be
scrambling to defend himself in that moment, but it was to no avail
— because the call had already been made. While many observers
thought the ending came early, Prochazka did his best to put an end
to the stoppage controversy in a video on Instagram.
“Hello everyone, I just want to say to all of you thank you for
your support,” Prochazka said. “This is for me just motivation.
Nothing else. Marc Goddard
was right. Maybe two or three more seconds and it would be a
different way, but what happened, happened. I accept that. Watch me
now. I’ll be back stronger than ever. Thank you for the
support.”
Saturday marked Prochazka’s first Octagon appearance since he
claimed light heavyweight gold with a fifth-round submission of
Glover
Teixeira at UFC 275 in June 2022. He vacated the belt after
suffering a serious shoulder injury in training for his first title
defense at UFC 282. The loss to Pereira snapped a 13-bout winning
streak for the former Rizin Fighting Federation champion.