The UFC light heavyweight is annoyed with critics after his recent callout of an ex-champion.
Jamahal Hill is tired of hearing he is not ready to share the Octagon with Jan Blachowicz.
’Sweet Dreams’ finished Thiago Santos via fourth-round TKO at UFC Vegas 59 this past Saturday in what was considered one of the biggest wins of his professional career thus far. Hill sent a message to the rest of the division and said he wanted an even bigger step up in competition, whether it was against current champion Ji?í Procházka or former champion Blachowicz. That caught the attention of his critics, with most of them saying his perceived bad cardio could hinder him in those fights.
Hill told James Lynch of Sportskeeda that the argument is invalid and should have no bearing on how a fight between him and Blachowicz would go. And since he just defeated the last person to finish Blachowicz with strikes, the No. 6 contender knows he would fare far better than what his critics are giving him credit for.
“Let’s address the whole Jan thing right now. People need to shut the f—k up about this whole, ‘Oh, Jan is this, he’s not on Jan’s level, Jan will take it,’” said Hill. “Bro, Jan f—king lost to Santos. Santos knocked him the f—k out. And if I’m not mistaken, he was losing that fight. Thiago Santos knocked him out. Period. This was three f—king years ago, it’s not that long ago. He got knocked out, sleeping. Whatever. So he never fought him again after that. And who did he beat? He beat Corey Anderson, no longer in the UFC. He beat Dominick Reyes, coming off a loss and that’s how he became champion.
“And then his only title defense was against the smallest f—king 205er [Israel Adesanya] that you could possibly fight just because he was a champion in a smaller weight class,” continued Hill. “You didn’t go out and just put on a dazzling performance and beat him up. He laid on him, you know what I’m saying? I respect Jan. Jan is a credible threat, he’s definitely one of the best in the world. But whenever you talk about comparing myself to anybody, bro, I compare to any f—ing body.”
Though Hill would prefer a fight against Procházka, the UFC is reportedly heading in a different direction. ‘Denisa’ expects to rematch Glover Teixeira, who he submitted via fifth-round rear-naked choke in a ‘Fight of the Year’ contender at UFC 275 in June.
With Procházka ruled out, Hill set his sights on Blachowicz instead. The Polish fighter recently rebounded from a loss to the aforementioned Teixeira with a third-round TKO of Aleksandar Raki?. Despite his campaigning for the newly crowned champion, Blachowicz may have to fight someone else, and Magomed Ankalaev has shown interest in him.
Should Procházka vs. Teixeira 2 and Blachowicz vs. Ankalaev get confirmed soon, that could leave Hill just outside the title picture for now.