Former UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill has no desire to secure respect from the MMA masses.
Hill marks one of the top names set to feature on the undercard of this weekend’s UFC 311 pay-per-view, as he and fellow ex-titleholder Ji?í Procházka set the stage for two championship headliners inside Inglewood’s Intuit Dome.
Ahead of it, “Sweet Dreams” certainly isn’t short of detractors. Be it due to his ongoing excuses following a knockout loss to Alex Pereira last April at UFC 300, his heated altercation with “Poatan” at the UFC Performance Institute last month, or the fiery responses he sends on social media, plenty have developed a negative perception of Hill.
The #3-ranked light heavyweight contender, however, could not care less.
“As far as everything for the stuff online, it’s just people talking,” Hill said during UFC 311 media day. “I understand, I understand that it’s hard to watch other people do things that maybe you wish that you could do, or maybe that you would want to do, or maybe you don’t have the courage to do, and then you want to spit out some venom and try to bring them down to a certain level of maybe where you are, or maybe you feel about yourself. So I just don’t really focus on that.
“It’s more the fact that the guys that are actually in here, that take the same risk as me and do it, and they respect it and they understand what I’m putting into this. That means a lot more than any weirdo sitting in his mom’s basement, talking with Cheeto dust and sh*t,” Hill added.
While he doesn’t seek respect from his haters, Hill will no doubt be looking to make a statement en route to proving them wrong come fight night in Los Angeles on Jan. 18.
And should he stall his Czech opponent’s plans for a third dance with Pereira, perhaps “Sweet Dreams” will be in the conversation for a rematch of his own with the Brazilian, whose expected clash with Magomed Ankalaev this year remains unofficial.