Prochazka was not happy to hear that the UFC commentary booth took him to task for fighting with his hands low again.
Jiri Prochazka put on an impressive performance against a tough opponent in Jamahal Hill at UFC 311, knocking out the former champion in the third round of their main card fight (highlights here). It wasn’t always easy, though. Hill landed more than a few big shots, and there was a risk the fight might get called after Prochazka took a particularly nasty poke to the eye.
During the UFC 311 post-fight press conference, Prochazka discussed his improvement, the eye poke, and accusations from the broadcast team that he was still sloppy in one particular area.
“That was the change what I wanted to show,” Jiri said of not going for the kill when he had Hill hurt in the first round. “Like, I don’t need to press myself and be in a hurry for a knockout, like, 100% knockout. I want a knockout, but be ready for for everything … Catch the opponent in the right times. Seriously and not so seriously making a contact. Feeling good in a fight. And this is something I achieved.”
“Me and my team, we took the preparation very seriously. So I’m happy that I I showed some little improvement with the hands up. But still, I believe in my feeling of my head movement and of the feeling of the of the distance. So this is my game.”
“l still feel [the eye poke] right now,” Prochazka revealed. “There is no way to stop the fight because of eye poke. I’ve got one more eye. We are here to fight, to win the fight. I know there is rules and all these things, but this is the true sport of man, the fight. And you fighting with eyes, no eyes, if the opponent gets you to ‘the boss’ or not. Doesn’t matter. For me, it’s fight till the end. There has to be one winner, and one who’s not.”
“I will play for the doctors the game that I’m okay, if he wants to stop or something like that. Like I said, no way for them to stop it because of this.”
Jiri Prochazka reacts on doctor considering to stop his fight because if the eye poke:
“There is no [point] to stop the fight because of the eye poke. I have one more eye.”
@ufc ?? pic.twitter.com/KyumWZ8ceH
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) January 19, 2025
Prochazka has taken a lot of criticism for leaving himself defensively open with his hands-down stance. And that didn’t change after UFC 311, which featured Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier castigating the former 205 pound champ for not keeping his hands up.
“I had, in first round, hands down?” Prochazka said when told of their comments. “F**k them. F**k them! I worked on that so much. So I think you should see that.”
He laughed as he said it, but it’s clear he’s doesn’t like the accusations of sloppy hand positioning.
“F*ck them! I worked on that so much.”
Jiri Prochazka did his best to keep his hands up at #UFC311 and didn’t appreciate the commentary team noting otherwise. pic.twitter.com/8etqovTegP
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) January 19, 2025
“Man, all the messages every day: ‘Man, you have to keep your hands up,’” he said. “So okay, I will do that. For this fight, I will keep that especially for this night. No!”
“Like I said, I believe in my senses,” he continued. “I believe in my feeling in a fight, in my head movement. And that’s why I can keep the hands down. But to be honest, in last fight with Alex [Pereira] it was a little bit too much. So … this is something what I’ve worked on and I wanna see the video from the fight because I believe that I did that, just a little bit.”
Everyone including Rogan and Cormier agreed, his head movement was indeed on point against Hill at UFC 313. But can he rely on that against a fearsome opponent like Alex Pereira, who has already proved twice that he can find Prochazka’s button and hit it with relative ease?