Former heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka stood in front of a compromised Carlos Ulberg late in the opening round of the UFC 327 main event last Saturday seemingly on his way to becoming a two-time titleholder.
Ulberg had injured his knee and was having difficulty with stability and movement. He became a stationary target. Prochazka looked to close the distance and was clipped with a clean left hand that sent him crashing to the canvas. Ulberg urgently finished with a series of punches and hammer fists in a stunning turn of events.
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Alex Pereira vacated the 205-pound championship to move up to the heavyweight division in a quest to become the first fighter to ever win three UFC divisional championships. His departure left a vacancy at the top of the division that Ulberg now fills.
Following the fight, Prochazka blamed the loss on showing ‘mercy’ on the visibly injured Ulberg.
“I felt like mercy, you know, in that fight. I felt so so sorry with him,” Prochazka said in his octagon interview following the fight. “That fight was won. I won that fight. I had it. It was in my hands and I just left him because I just saw his injury and … “
Former multiple-time title challenger and UFC analyst Chael Sonnen didn’t see it the way Prochazka tells it.
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“Jiri’s coming out of the back saying, ‘Man, I was showing mercy and I was being nice.’ Maybe. But it looked to me like you were in a fist fight and you got punched on the chin by a guy that’s pretty good at punching people on the chin,” said Sonnen during On the Road.
“I didn’t know where this whole I had mercy and I had the fight won and this guy’s one one leg. That’s not what I saw. That’s what the announcers were screaming to everybody, but I saw a cage fight where two guys were trying to hurt one another and Carlos got the jump on Jiri. That’s what I saw,” Sonnen continued.
“I did not see Jiri taking mercy. I did not see the fight that Jiri thought that he won and then was showing a kindness. I thought that Jiri was doing his job which was trying to hurt and finish his opponent. His opponent did the same thing back to him and did a little bit better. That’s what I thought I saw. It was a fair contest. Ulberg’s the winner.”
