Former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold seems to be leaning toward Jamahal Hill in the battle between past light heavyweight titleholders.
Hill faces Jiri Prochazka at UFC 311 in Los Angeles on Jan. 18. Both fighters look to bounce back from brutal knockout losses to current 205-pound king Alex Pereira, and Rockhold believes Prochazka’s mindset could be of big help to Hill in this pivotal clash.
“That’s a very tough fight, man,” Rockhold said on JAXXON Podcast. “You just don’t know where Jiri is at — his head and his mind. Both of them [are] coming off bad losses to Pereira, Jiri [had] two bad losses [in his past three fights]. He just didn’t look himself [at UFC 303]. He knew what he needed to do, and he went out there and fought blindly.
“I didn’t like the way Jiri fought his last time out versus Pereira. He just didn’t look like he would follow the game plan. Like, what were you doing?”
Hill faced Pereira at the iconic UFC 300 and suffered one of the most memorable knockouts of the year in the process in his quest to regain the title. “Sweet Dreams” was slated to face Khalil Rountree and then Carlos Ulberg at UFC 303, but an injury forced him to withdraw from the bout.
Prochazka, as he told MMA Fighting, is taking this fight with Hill very seriously and is accepting who he is as a fighter, competitor, and human being. Despite Hill’s trash talk, Prochazka is all business and plans to let his fighting do the talking for him.
Even with Prochazka’s seemingly new focus heading into 2025, Rockhold is leaning toward his foe.
“Jamahal Hill’s more dangerous,” Rockhold said. “He’s got pop, he’s got power, he goes for the kill. Jamahal’s got funky... he’s weirdly athletic, sometimes. He’s hard to take down, you [saw] it in the Glover [Teixeira] fight — he was able to get up, get his weight, he funks his way through a lot of things.
“And he ends up finding his shot, the kill shot. But, like I said, this is a rebuilding process for both of them, and you don’t know. But I don’t know, I might favor Jamahal in this one.
“I’m leaning on Jamahal from what I’ve seen lately.”
