Jiri Prochazka prides himself on being scary focused on whatever obstacle he\u2019s trying to conquer.<\/p>\n
Sometimes that\u2019s literally climbing a mountain or fighting back against the fear of swimming under ice on a frozen lake but that also carries over to his fight career. In a sport so often driven by the question of \u2018what comes next,\u201d Prochazka prefers keeping his sights set on the person about to stand across from him in the octagon, which is why Carlos Ulberg is getting all of his attention ahead of their title fight at UFC 327.<\/p>\n
As natural as it may seem to talk about a future trilogy against Alex Pereira or the looming specter that UFC middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev might eventually move to 205 pounds. Prochazka prefers to deny anybody else\u2019s existence for the time being.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust Saturday night,\u201d Prochazka told MMA Fighting about his focus. \u201cAfter that fight, we can speak about the next options. But right now, the title fight is here. All what I\u2019ve worked on is right now, right here. This is the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, there is no other things. No other opponents. F*ck the others. There is just me and my art and what I want to show. This is all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eliminating distractions is a huge part of Prochazka\u2019s approach to fighting, which is why he prefers thinking about UFC 327 and Saturday night as the last day he\u2019s guaranteed anything on this Earth.<\/p>\n
Of course, Prochazka never fully ignores what\u2019s happening outside the cage \u2014 most importantly right now is the birth of his daughter, which is expected very soon \u2014 but when it comes to fighting there\u2019s nobody else to think about besides Ulberg.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, this is what I like. This is what I like,\u201d Prochazka said. \u201cBecause you can be totally focused. There is no celebration. There is no other day. No other things. I have to count the other days because my family is waiting for me, there is the birth of my kid and all these other things. Yes, I come with that but also, I am ready to do anything for a win on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not [counting] the days after Saturday night but it\u2019s about to be fully focused for Saturday night and be here and now and do my best on Saturday night. Win the belt, go home and see how my daughter will be born.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prochazka\u2019s title shot against Ulberg effectively happened because Pereira vacated the light heavyweight championship to move to heavyweight where he\u2019s scheduled to face Ciryl Gane at the UFC White House card in June.<\/p>\n
With two losses against \u201cPoatan\u201d in the past, Prochazka can\u2019t completely ignore his desire to run it back for a third time but as soon as he learned that he was facing Ulberg instead, he had to put that trilogy out of his mind.<\/p>\n
It turns out, Prochazk actually saw that Pereira\u2019s move to heavyweight coming months before anybody else knew it was going to happen so he had plenty of time to adjust.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that coming,\u201d Prochazka said about Pereira leaving the division. \u201cWe spoke with UFC about this a long time before it happened. We knew that with my team a long time before it happened. I prepared myself one and a half months before it was announced to everyone that I will have to fight with Carlos Ulberg. First month was just I believed that will happen. Then we transferred to Mexico City for high altitude training, we trained there for one month and we came back and then UFC told me \u2018you will have the title fight.\u2019 We just believed for this option and it happened. I\u2019m glad for that. Really glad.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just focusing for Carlos Ulberg. If there is an opponent before me, there is no other man who I\u2019m focused [on]. I believe that we will meet in the future with Alex, also, but right now I\u2019m fully focused for my next opponent. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n
As much as he tries to ignore the future until his next mission is completed, Prochazka admits that visualization is still a big part of his preparation. He\u2019s envisioned his win over Ulberg and getting that UFC title wrapped back around his waist but he still prefers not even talking about that publicly.<\/p>\n
Instead, Prochazka internalizes everything but he\u2019s definitely seen the conclusion of UFC 327 in his own mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, I\u2019m doing that but I\u2019m not speaking about that loudly,\u201d Prochazka said. \u201cBecause I think it\u2019s a very, very personal thing and I believe in all these things you have to keep all these pictures inside your mind and just keep the vibe of that and expose it by what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot just by your words but what I do, that\u2019s the most important [thing]. I believe I will do that Saturday night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jiri Prochazka prides himself on being scary focused on whatever obstacle he\u2019s trying to conquer. Sometimes that\u2019s literally…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-593483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-videos"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593483","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=593483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}