Jiri Prochazka prepping for next fight: ‘Let’s start the camp’

Ryan Harkness breaks down daily mixed martial arts (MMA) news, providing unique context to stories that only 15 years of obsessing over the sport can provide, having worked for FOX Sports, Yahoo! Sports, UPROXX, MSN, Bleacher Report, HDNet and CagePotato, among others, before joining MMAmania.com in 2017.

Jiri Prochazka has entered training camp, which means a fight announcement should be coming soon.

Prochazka hasn’t fought since a disappointing title bout loss to Carlos Ulberg back in April where he seemed to have the fight in the bag before fumbling it. Ulberg blew his knee out early in the fight, but managed to rally and knock “The Czech Samurai” out. Jiri would blame a sense of mercy for the defeat.

Since then, Prochazka has been busy being a new father, as his first child was born just days after that UFC 327 tilt. Nearly six months later, and he’s getting ready to return to the cage. He posted a picture from the gym in impressive shape, along with a clear statement.

“Right on the spot, lets start the camp,” he wrote.

There’s been a lot of questions surrounding Prochazka’s fighting future since he lost his third of four title fights. Prochazka won the light heavyweight belt back in June 2022, only to relinquish it after suffering a bad shoulder injury. He hasn’t managed to recapture gold since then, despite the UFC’s willingness to throw him into championship fights at the drop of a hat.

Jiri has repeatedly talked about potentially moving down to middleweight, and even discussed heavyweight at one point. But there’s been no hint recently of whether he’ll return at 205 or move to 185 for his return bout. Light heavyweight remains a wide open division, and a single impressive win could put him right back in contention. And with the way the UFC is booking things lately, even an immediate shot at middleweight isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

We’ll keep you updated as we get more information on who Prochazka is training to fight.