{"id":516108,"date":"2026-03-03T14:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516108\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:08:13","slug":"ufc-327-title-fight-is-just-2-days-before-due-date-of-prochazkas-first-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/516108\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC 327 title fight is just 2 days before due date of Prochazka\u2019s first child"},"content":{"rendered":"

For weeks there were reports that Alex Pereira would be moving up to heavyweight,<\/a> leaving a belt available for Prochazka to fight for. Would it be against Khamzat Chimaev, the middleweight champ who also wants to move up?<\/a> That was a legit possibility<\/a> for a while, but the UFC clearly decided to go with Carlos Ulberg instead.<\/p>\n

In a new interview on the Ariel Helwani show, Prochazka explained how it was title shot or bust for him when it came to fighting at UFC 327, which is just two days before his partner is due to give birth to their first child.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to fight later in June,\u201d Prochazka admitted. \u201cOne month after the birth would be the best. My girlfriend told me, \u2018If you will have the title fight 11th of May, let\u2019s do that, but it has to be a big fight. Don\u2019t fight some similar fight, because you can fight all the year these normal fights.\u2018 Then we start to negotiate with the UFC about the title fight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything just lined up with Alex Pereira (who has already beaten Jiri Prochazka with dark magic<\/a> twice) looking to move up to heavyweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not surprised,\u201d Prochazka said of the move. \u201cI think it\u2019s the gentleman\u2019s thing to do when you go up and he wants to go up, it\u2019s normal to release the title \u2026 [a rematch] I hoped for. Possible opponents for me were Ulberg or Pereira, I wanted just one of these two for a title fight because I don\u2019t think other fighters deserve it. I believe sooner or later, Alex Pereira will come in my way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI already chose the way I like to hunt Ulberg, because he don\u2019t like the pressure,\u201d Prochazka said. \u201cHe don\u2019t like to be hunted. This is what I say to myself: I need to be that one who catches this guy. There is no other way to fight with him. He is fast, good kickboxer, he likes to jump a lot, be light on the legs. He don\u2019t like to wrestle, he don\u2019t like to be on the ground. So pressure, pressure. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For weeks there were reports that Alex Pereira would be moving up to heavyweight, leaving a belt available…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-516108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}