Jiri Prochazka is proud to have shared the octagon with Khalil Rountree.
The two popular light heavyweights collided in a must-see bout at UFC 320 earlier this month. After Rountree won the first two rounds, Prochazka decided to go for broke in Round 3, which led to a vicious beating that knocked Rountree out cold.
Because of the damage done by Prochazka, Rountree was helped out of the octagon and wasn’t around for the official decision being announced. Prochazka didn’t get a chance to speak to Rountree after the fight, so he was asked to send a message to the recent title challenger.
“The first thing I want to say to Khalil: Thank you,” Prochazka told MMA Fighting. “Thank you for the amazing fight. Thank you, because every time, when you share the cage with some opponents, he’s also your teacher because he’s teaching you how to overcome him, how to overcome his attacks, how to learn, how to be better, because that’s what we are doing. … I’m sharpening him, he’s sharpening me.
“That’s the point of fighting, to be better — to be better as a humans, and to find a way how to overcome somebody, even ourselves, by our performance, to find a way how to be better in our performance, how to be better than our opponents. … I’m thankful to him, to share the cage with him, and especially with him, because there was not too many opponents as dynamic and tough like him.”
Prochazka is now 2-0 in 2025, which includes a knockout win over former champion Jamahal Hill at UFC 311 in January.
“BJP” hopes the win puts him in position to fight for the light heavyweight title next — whether it’s against Alex Pereira, or anybody else — but after rewatching the bout, Prochazka wasn’t overly thrilled with what he saw prior to the third round.
“I’ve thought about [what this win meant], it was for me really something where I didn’t show what I really worked on,” Prochazka said. “I just saw that fight and I was, I don’t want to say disgusted by my performance, but I want to say, I was better [than what I showed]. I was much better and I really worked to show my improvement, to show what I’ve worked [on], to be much better in counter timing and much better in working with the space between us, and about the movement.
“But in the end, I just had to make a big step back down to the basics — hard work, total hunting, and just hard work. Going through [a fighter like] Khalil just by hard work. Nothing else. Just to hunt him, and this is something that I don’t like to do in the sparring, and in fighting because it is the last thing and it’s so [high] risk to do that. So, this for me, [was] like last option, and after two rounds, what I wanted to find [was something good] tactically, some good strategy to end it, to catch him, to find some set up for Khalil. I just had to go back to the basics because it was really necessary, because it was the last round. I had to end Khalil by knockout. I had to end him.
“[The only possibility was] to win by knockout so that’s why I’m happy that I [found] a way.”
Prochazka hopes he can avenge his two losses to Pereira, and considers it a “dream” scenario — which is why he was so emotional cageside watching Pereira’s lopsided stoppage win over Magomed Ankalaev in the UFC 320 main event.
Of course, he likely gave Pereira an A grade for the 80-second knockout victory over his rival, but the studious Prochazka graded his own performance on a tougher scale.
“[I give it a] C,” Prochazka said. “C because not good, not bad. Maybe a little bit bad, but in the end, you find a way. So that is a C.”
Subscribe to my channel
