Pros pick Prochazka: Holloway, Usman, and Adesanya share UFC 303 predictions

Alex Pereira beat Jiri Prochazka soundly in the second round of their big UFC 295 fight back in November 2023. But that hasn’t stopped some of the world’s best fighters from picking “The Czech Samurai” to win in their UFC 303 rematch.

In a video breaking down the June 29th card, Max Holloway explained his logic for picking Prochazka over Pereira.

“If there is a time to get Mr. Pereira in a fight, the time is now,” Holloway said. “Jiri was in his hut right after UFC 300, training for a fight, training for something. He left UFC 300, went back home to his hut, and started training again. Mr. Pereira, on the other hand, was on the opposite side of the world doing world tours. In Australia doing side missions, like he’s been. He’s always doing side missions, man. This guy is a G.”

“Full camp, both guys, anybody can win a fight,” he added. “This is MMA, brother. I don’t want to disrespect Jiri and be like, ‘Oh, this is the only chance you got.’ I’m just saying if your odds are greater on one side, it is now. If I was a betting man and a gambler, I’d have to go with Jiri.”

In his own breakdown of UFC 303 on the Pound 4 Pound podcast, Kamaru Usman also mentioned “Poatan” stepping in during a tour of Australia.

“I do know this definitely does hurt you when you are the champion,” he said of distractions. “On your road to become champion, all you have to do is stay home and train. No one is really requesting you that much, ‘Hey fly here, do an appearance here, do an appearance there, come here in this nice car, eat in this nice restaurant.’ All you’re doing is training.”

“But when you become champion, you start doing all these things and getting all of these opportunities. Which is great, that’s what we dream of. But it takes you away from that training session, that extra time thinking about how to become champion.”

“Jiri Prochazka was putting on kind of a masterclass [in the first fight],” Usman concluded. “When you push [Pereira] backwards like Jiri Prochazka was doing to him, and landing multiple strikes? It looked like Jiri was gonna get the job done early in that fight. And he got multiple takedowns! He knew what he was doing — got to the single leg, elevated him, swept it out, got him down. Jiri Prochazka looked like the more complete mixed martial artist for sure.”

Israel Adesanya knows a thing or three about fighting Alex Pereira, and he suggested the champ might not be as cardio ready as he needs to be for a five round title fight.

“Holding on for five rounds and you’re not fit? I’m telling you, it’s a bad, bad time,” Adesanya said on his YouTube channel. “So you just have to go in there and be like, ‘Right, either he dies or I die.’ So who’s going to try to kill who in this fight? I’m going to go Jiri because we’re the Chosen Few, but also I think he might have learned from his mistake because people don’t understand.

“I’m going to go Jiri, and I’m going to go by third or fourth-round finish.”

What do you think, Maniacs? Will Alex Pereira have the gas tank coming off his Australian tour to survive Jiri Prochazka? Will the spirit of his ancestors carry him through to another magical win? Let us know in the comments below.