Ji?í Procházka doesn’t have what it takes to defeat Jamahal Hill in their upcoming bout, claims a former UFC middleweight champion.
Procházka and Hill are set to collide in a crucial matchup on the main card of UFC 311, scheduled for Jan. 18 at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.
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Both former UFC light heavyweight champions are coming off crushing knockout losses to reigning divisional kingpin Alex Pereira in their most recent Octagon appearances. In fact, “Denisa” experienced his first UFC defeat at the hands of Pereira when they fought for the then-vacant 205-pound title at UFC 295 in November 2023.
Procházka’s unorthodox fighting style has made it difficult for his past opponents to decipher, but Luke Rockhold believes that this very uniqueness also exposes significant vulnerabilities — especially when facing someone like Hill.
During a recent appearance on the JAXXON PODCAST, Rockhold lambasted Procházka’s tactics in his rematch against “Poatan” this past June, asserting that the Czech fighter lacked any coherent strategy in the bout.
“I didn’t like the way that Ji?í fought his last time out versus Pereira,” Rockhold said. “He just didn’t look like he would follow the game plan. Like, what were you doing? I don’t know. To think you could stand with him and play this karate style, Kung Fu game. You can’t fight like that, a guy that he’s so dangerous, you can’t fight with your hands down and you got to go for takedowns. You identified his weakness, but you didn’t even try to exploit it.”
The former UFC middleweight champion went on to assert that “Sweet Dreams” holds a distinct tactical advantage over Procházka and is more than capable of getting the job done at UFC 311.
“Jamahal Hill’s more dangerous. He’s got pop, he’s got power, he goes for the kill and Jamahal’s got funky — he’s weirdly athletic sometimes. He’s hard to take down. You’ve seen in the Glover [Teixeira] fight, he was able to get up and get his way and funks his way through a lot of things and he ends up finding his shot, the kill shot. But, like I said, this is a rebuilding process for both of them and you don’t know, but I don’t know. I might favor Jamahal in this one.”