Polish Power ain’t just for striking anymore.
UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz is expected to make his next 205-pound title defense against longtime division contender Glover Teixeira. Just don’t expect to see them collide any sooner than late summer, based on this timeline.
Blachowicz (28-8) is known for his heavy hands but actually has more wins by submission than knockout, including his slick arm-triangle choke over light heavyweight bruiser Nikita Krylov at UFC Fight Night 136, so don’t expect him to be intimidated by the Brazilian, who earned his Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Luigi Mondelli.
“He has good boxing but he uses it to get close to you and takes you down. In this fight, I will be the guy who wants to fight standing and he will try and take me down,” Blachowicz said on Just Scrap Radio on BJPENN.com. “My jiu-jitsu is good, even better than what he has so if he tries to take me down it is not going to be easy to submit me. He will have to be careful, maybe I try and take him down. In every part of the game, I am better.”
Blachowicz, 38, is the winner of five straight, including his UFC 259 headliner over middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya. As for Teixeira (32-7), the 41 year-old slugger is coming off five straight wins of his own, dating back to Jan. 2019.
Hard to imagine these two veteran bangers would turn this into a grappling match, but I also thought the same thing ahead of Teixeira’s win over light heavyweight sledgehammer Thiago Santos, which came by way of rear-naked choke.