Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold appears to be leaning towards Jamahal Hill within the battle between previous mild heavyweight titleholders.
Hill faces Jiri Prochazka at UFC 311 in Los Angeles on Jan. 18. Each fighters look to bounce again from brutal knockout losses to present 205-pound king Alex Pereira, and Rockhold believes Prochazka’s mindset might be of huge assist to Hill on this pivotal conflict.
“That’s a really powerful battle, man,” Rockhold stated on JAXXON Podcast. “You simply don’t know the place Jiri is at — his head and his thoughts. Each of them [are] coming off dangerous losses to Pereira, Jiri [had] two dangerous losses [in his past three fights]. He simply didn’t look himself [at UFC 303]. He knew what he wanted to do, and he went on the market and fought blindly.
“I didn’t like the way in which Jiri fought his final outing versus Pereira. He simply didn’t appear to be he would comply with the sport plan. Like, what had been you doing?”
Hill confronted Pereira on the iconic UFC 300 and suffered probably the most memorable knockouts of the 12 months within the course of in his quest to regain the title. “Candy Goals” was slated to face Khalil Rountree after which Carlos Ulberg at UFC 303, however an damage pressured him to withdraw from the bout.
Prochazka, as he instructed MMA Preventing, is taking this battle with Hill very severely and is accepting who he’s as a fighter, competitor, and human being. Regardless of Hill’s trash speak, Prochazka is all enterprise and plans to let his combating do the speaking for him.
Even with Prochazka’s seemingly new focus heading into 2025, Rockhold is leaning towards his foe.
“Jamahal Hill’s extra harmful,” Rockhold stated. “He’s obtained pop, he’s obtained energy, he goes for the kill. Jamahal’s obtained funky… he’s weirdly athletic, generally. He’s onerous to take down, you [saw] it within the Glover [Teixeira] battle — he was capable of rise up, get his weight, he funks his method by means of a variety of issues.
“And he finally ends up discovering his shot, the kill shot. However, like I stated, this can be a rebuilding course of for each of them, and also you don’t know. However I don’t know, I’d favor Jamahal on this one.
“I’m leaning on Jamahal from what I’ve seen recently.”
