Jiri Prochazka knees Aleksandar Rakic.Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images
Pereira: Championship Confidence
There were a lot of reasons to doubt Pereira in the early days of his UFC career.
His grappling skill was a total mystery, and even if his takedown defense held up, we had seen other elite kickboxers get knocked out in the UFC before—Gokhan Saki being the best example.
While there are still some people out there who believe Pereira could be undone by a good wrestler or that he’ll eventually get caught, there is no longer any questioning his status as an elite MMA fighter. He has now won UFC titles in two divisions, and defended one of them, all against elite competition.
Boxing coach Teddy Atlas claims he was once told by some “old-time trainers” that a fighter instantly becomes 30 per cent better when they become a champion. That seems to be the case with Pereira. He’s one of the best mixed martial artists in the world right now, and that’s going to make him confident.
Whether that confidence makes him more dangerous or makes him complacent remains to be seen.
Prochazka: Nothing to Lose
Prochazka always fights like he has nothing to lose, often totally abandoning his defense to land a few wild, unpredictable strikes.
This time around, he doesn’t have much to lose. He doesn’t have a title to defend, and we’ve already seen him lose to Pereira. If it happens again, not much changes, and it would be all the more forgivable considering the short-notice circumstances of the matchup.
Given all of that, we can probably expect Prochazka to be more gung-ho than ever at UFC 303, throwing caution to the wind in search of a title-winning knockout against one of the promotion’s biggest stars.
That may turn out to be just what he needs to dethrone the champion. On the other hand, he may land in hot water even faster than he did when he fought Pereira last year. Time will tell.
