Jan
Blachowicz was pretty succinct in summing up his performance
against Glover
Teixeira in the
UFC 267 headliner.
The Polish veteran struggled to remain upright to showcase his
knockout power, as Teixera took him down with ease in the opening
stanza of their light heayweight tilte bout. Blachowicz didn’t
panic despite being on his back for much of Round 1. However, it
wasn’t long before he was grounded again in the second frame after
being stunned by a Teixeira left hook. This time, the Brazilian
advanced position with ease, transitioned to the back and flattened
Blachowicz out for a rear-naked choke submission win.
“Everything was okay,” Blachowicz said. “The first round I think
that he would take me down, but anyway I don’t feel bad in this
position. I say okay, this round is for him now, the second round
I’ll start working, I’ll do my job.
“But he don’t let me do this. He take me down again and submit me.
What can I say more? I feel like s— and that’s it.”
Blachowicz claimed the vacant title with a knockout of Dominick
Reyes before entering pound-for-pound discussions with a
five-round defense against reigning UFC middleweight king Israel
Adesanya. The WCA Fight Team member entered Saturday with
victories in nine of his last 10 outings and was a considerable
favorite against Teixeira.
In defeat, Blachowicz vowed to return to correct the things that
went wrong in Abu Dhabi.
“My performance today was horrible,” Blachowicz said. “I don’t
know. I wasn’t champion today, he was. He is.
“I don’t know, I need time to think about it, but for sure
something was bad. It wasn’t me. I don’t want to explain myself, he
beat me, everybody see that. It’s not over, I’m not a quitter, I
will not go anywhere, I will come back here for sure. I need to
rest for sure, think a little bit, and for sure I will come back.
I’m not a quitter, I’m not a coward, I will not quit. You’re gonna
see me in the octagon again.”
While Blachowicz would like a chance to face Teixeira again down
the road, he acknowledges that he’ll need a couple wins before he’s
worthy of a championship rematch.
“We’ll see what happens in the future,” he said “I don’t know. If
it will be a chance to take a rematch, of course I would like to
take a rematch with [everyone I lost to before]. First of all, now
I don’t have chance for rematch, now I need to prove that I have to
come back and win a couple of fights.”