Jiri Prochazka Says ‘Marc Goddard Was Right’ to Halt UFC 295 Main Event

To the naked eye, it appeared that Jiri Prochazka deserved a little more time to recover against Alex Pereira in the UFC 295 main event.

Prochazka was hurt by a short left hook from his foe in the second stanza, which prompted the Czech Republic native to shoot for a takedown. From there, Pereira transitioned to a series of hard elbows to the side of the head, and Prochazka toppled backward to the canvas with his Brazilian foe on top of him.

At that point, veteran official Marc Goddard had seen enough, and he waved off the light heavyweight title bout at the 4:08 mark of Round 2. Prochazka still appeared to be scrambling to defend himself in that moment, but it was to no avail — because the call had already been made. While many observers thought the ending came early, Prochazka did his best to put an end to the stoppage controversy in a video on Instagram.

“Hello everyone, I just want to say to all of you thank you for your support,” Prochazka said. “This is for me just motivation. Nothing else. Marc Goddard was right. Maybe two or three more seconds and it would be a different way, but what happened, happened. I accept that. Watch me now. I’ll be back stronger than ever. Thank you for the support.”

Saturday marked Prochazka’s first Octagon appearance since he claimed light heavyweight gold with a fifth-round submission of Glover Teixeira at UFC 275 in June 2022. He vacated the belt after suffering a serious shoulder injury in training for his first title defense at UFC 282. The loss to Pereira snapped a 13-bout winning streak for the former Rizin Fighting Federation champion.

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