{"id":828678,"date":"2026-07-28T08:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828678\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T08:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:16:09","slug":"stirling-reveals-bender-before-blachowicz-bout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828678\/","title":{"rendered":"Stirling Reveals Bender Before Blachowicz Bout"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Navajo Stirling was celebrating in Japan when the UFC called with a short-notice fight against former <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/light-&lt;a href=\" http:=\"\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a>\/&#8221; class=&#8221;internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2&#8243;&gt;light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz.<\/p>\n<p>The undefeated Kiwi will face Blachowicz in the co-main event at <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/event\/ufc-belgrade-2026-08-01\/\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC Belgrade<\/a> this Saturday, stepping up to replace Bogdan Guskov less than two months after stopping Ion Cutelaba. Stirling told Home Of Fight the timing was less than ideal. &#8220;I&#8217;d just come off holiday mode in Japan,&#8221; he said, per MMA Mania. &#8220;I&#8217;m always training in the gym despite whatever I&#8217;m doing, that&#8217;s my routine. But yeah, just come off a massive bender and just rolled into the weeks and got offered a fight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Youth Versus Experience At <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnews.com\/division\/light-&lt;a href=\" http:=\"\" class=\"internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heavyweight<\/a>\/&#8221; class=&#8221;internal-link text-bone underline decoration-ash\/30 hover:decoration-gold underline-offset-2&#8243;&gt;Light Heavyweight<\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old has won five straight UFC bouts with stoppage wins over Cutelaba and Bruno Lopes, but Blachowicz represents a significant step up in competition even at 43. Stirling is a notable favourite despite the rushed preparation, banking on conditioning and the momentum from what he called his best training camp to date. &#8220;I just came off the best camp of my life, so why wouldn&#8217;t I take it?&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>The fight books Saturday in Belgrade with Blachowicz looking to rebound and Stirling chasing his sixth straight octagon win.<\/p>\n<p class=\"image-credit\">Photo: MMAnytt \/ <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Jan_Blachowicz_at_UFC_Fight_Night_136.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/3.0\" rel=\"license nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CC BY 3.0<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sources-heading\">Original reporting:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Navajo Stirling was celebrating in Japan when the UFC called with a short-notice fight against former heavyweight\/&#8221; class=&#8221;internal-link&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-828678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828678","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=828678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}