Alex Pereira Defeated Prochazka In Round 2, Won Vacant Light HW Title
Alex Pereira won the UFC title at Madison Square Garden for the second bout in a year. He submitted Jiri Prochazka with a quick left uppercut and some ground and pound at 4:08 of the second round on Saturday in the main event of UFC 295, earning the light heavyweight title.
In the final round of their 2022 middleweight championship match at UFC 281, Pereira submitted Israel Adesanya. At UFC 287 in Miami, he was relegated to light heavyweight after losing the title against Adesanya in a rematch.
His light heavyweight status seemed to suit him better, requiring less weight loss, but he was still quite powerful.
Pereira was brought back to the cage by Prochazka, who started the last sequence with a right hand sting. Referee Marc Godard was forced to stop the fight when Pereira completed Prochazka with a left uppercut that had down him.
After Georges St-Pierre, Amanda Nunes, B.J. Penn, Conor McGregor, Daniel Cormier, Randy Couture, and Henry Cejudo, he is the eighth fighter in UFC history to win titles in two weight classes.
Known for his powerful strikes, one of the best in the business, Alex Pereira mostly avoided Prochazka during their bout. Prochazka had taken the championship in 2022 after Subduing Pereira’s mentor, Glover Teixeira, in the Fight of the Year at UFC 275.
After suffering a shoulder injury a year prior, which UFC CEO Dana White stated at the time was among the worst his doctors had seen, Prochazka hadn’t competed.
Prochazka declared, “I was out,” and expressed no concerns about the outcome. After putting in so much effort to heal the injuries, he was disappointed. Before Pereira’s uppercut put a stop to it, he looked terrific and was mostly in control of the action.
That’s the problem with taking on a slugger: you run the chance of losing badly, like the heavy-handed Czech did.
