"My idol in my youngest years" - Jiří Procházka shares excitement at Georges St-Pierre's acknowledgment
Jiří Procházka is set to challenge Glover Teixeira for the UFC light heavyweight title on June 11 in Singapore, and the avid mixed martial artist has the support of Georges St-Pierre.
In a recent interview with James Lynch, St-Pierre was asked about Procházka, to which he responded:
“I enjoy watching his fights, 100%. He is a great striker and very dangerous. Perhaps his work on the ground is not so good, we did not see him too much on the ground. He hasn't gone through many checks yet. I would like to see more of his fights. But he is very impressive. I think he will be the champion.”
WHAT. AN. ELBOW 🤯
@Jiri_BJP is nominated for Fan Choice KO of the Year 🏆
[ 🏆 #UFCHonors | Presented By @ToyoTires ] https://t.co/iL72s8XXEI
When Jiří Procházka talked to Lynch in another interview, he was excited to hear the praise from one of his idols. He said:
"That's why I'm fighting! To show the people the beauty of the martial arts. And to hear that from Georges St-Pierre who's my idol in my youngest years ... it's amazing. And I'm very glad for that and I just have to say I will show my best in the next fight."
Jiří Procházka is facing Glover Teixeira at UFC 275 in what will be the 42-year-old Teixeira's first title defense since winning the belt off Jan Błachowicz in October 2021. Teixeira is on a six-fight win streak with five of those victories coming via finish. However, the streak Procházka carries over from Japan's Rizin FF promotion sits at 12 wins, with 11 coming via KO/TKO.
Watch the full interview between Jiri Prochazka and James Lynch below:
Jiří Procházka has been working on his wrestling at Henry Cejudo's Fight Ready gym
Georges St-Pierre isn't the only person questioning Jiří Procházka's wrestling credentials. As 'Rush' said, it's not that there's a hole in Procházka's game, there just hasn't been a lot of situations where he's had to wrestle in the cage.
Regardless, 'Denisa' has been hard at work upgrading his wrestling skills at Arizona's Fight Ready gym, home to coach Eric Albarracin and UFC wrestling standouts like Henry Cejudo and Mark Madsen. Procházka told Lynch:
"That experience with them, it was a big school for me about wrestling because they are very very great specialists for wrestling. THere is a lot of wrestlers which trained that wrestling since childhood and it was amazing to watch how they work, how many details they see and that's why I started to ... not change my style but include the wrestling in my style and making my stand-up, open it for these wrestling techniques."
Glover Teixeira is a solid wrestler and submission expert, so any help Procházka can get staying upright in their UFC 275 title fight will be a big help.
"I think I will have problems with him because he's so heavy now" 😅
Jiri Prochazka (@jiri_bjp) spoke about getting the opportunity to train with Jon Jones next week and the rest of the 'Fight Ready' team
Full interview via @sportskeedaMMA here
youtu.be/ov6x_CXGYEU https://t.co/xvCbBRbIQz
MMA fans can check out this exciting video created by Sportskeeda: