If the commentary team is still raggin’ on Jiri Prochazka after UFC 311: ‘F*ck them’

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Jiri Prochazka heard a little rumor in some circles that he keeps his hands down too much.

It cost him in his losses to light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, some surmised. And some of those some, Prochazka has heard, happen to be on the UFC’s commentary team.

At UFC 311 (pay-per-view, ESPNews/Disney+, ESPN+) on Saturday at Intuit Dome, if Prochazka (31-5-1 MMA, 5-2 UFC) did keep his hands down too much against Jamahal Hill (12-4 MMA, 6-4 UFC), it didn’t wind up making a difference. He finished Hill with a third-round TKO and took home a $50,000 bonus.

He also put himself in position to question what other move he has next except another crack at Pereira – though the champ just booked a UFC 313 main event against new challenger Magomed Ankalaev.

But if there still is criticism of his hands, Prochazka has a playful message after he said he went out of his way to keep them up against Hill.

“F*ck them. I worked on that so much,” Prochazka said at his post-fight news conference after he was told the broadcast team – Jon Anik, Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier – made mention of it. “(People) messaged me every day: ‘You have to keep your hands up.’ So OK, I will do that for this fight. I will keep the hands up, especially for this night.

“(I keep my hand down because) I believe in my senses. I believe in my feeling in a fight – in my head movement. That’s why I can keep the hands down. To be honest, in the last fight with Alex, I was a little bit too (OK keeping my) hands down. So this is something I’ve worked on. I want to see the video from the fight (against Hill), because I believe that I (kept my hands up).”

When Prochazka isn’t fighting Pereira, all he does is win fights – and win bonuses. He has bonuses in all five of his UFC wins – including a double-$50K night against Dominick Reyes. That one got him a shot at then-champ Blover Teixeira, and he finished him at UFC 275 to win the title.

He had to vacate it with an injury, and when he came back, it was against Pereira and he came up short. Seven months and another win (and bonus) later, he came up short again. It seems debatable whether the UFC will want to keep him on deck for a third shot at Pereira so soon after the last one.

But that’s the fight he thinks he deserves, and he thinks things finally would be different in a trilogy bout.

“I believe right now what we have with my team with the preparation,” Prochazka said. “What we are right now doing with my attitude, what I can take to the octagon, to really enjoy the moment, really enjoy my calm in the octagon to push it to another level – this is why I’m doing that. I’m enjoying the process.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 311.