Pereira KOs Prochazka in Round 2 to win 2nd UFC title

Alex Pereira may have just cemented a Hall of Fame career in record time.

Pereira became UFC champion in a second division Saturday night, knocking out Jiri Prochazka at the 4:08 mark of the second round to claim the vacant light heavyweight title in the UFC 295 main event at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Pereira, who used to hold the middleweight belt, dropped Prochazka with a left hook and finished him off with elbows to the side of the head.

Pereira became the ninth two-division champion in UFC history, achieving the feat quicker than anyone else.

This was just the Brazilian's seventh UFC fight and 11th professional MMA bout. It took UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture nine UFC fights to win titles in two different divisions, the fewest number before Pereira.

Pereira is the first fighter to ever win UFC titles at both light heavyweight and middleweight. The 36-year-old is also a former two-division champion in GLORY Kickboxing.

After the win, Pereira expressed interest in defending his new strap against rival Israel Adesanya.

Pereira and Adesanya have already fought twice in the UFC. Adesanya, the former two-time middleweight champion, knocked out Pereira to regain the belt in April but lost it to Sean Strickland in September. Pereira challenged Adesanya for the 185-pound strap in November 2022 at Madison Square Garden and won via fifth-round TKO. Pereira has also beaten Adesanya twice in kickboxing.

"I know that I am not gonna do what he did to me - he made me fight three times to fight him at middleweight," Pereira said in his native Portuguese through an interpreter. "I know it's a guy that has our history. I want to make happen this fight.

"Adesanya, come to daddy," he added in English.

Pereira chewed up Prochazka's lead leg with hard kicks in the opening five minutes of the fight. But Prochazka took the frame on all three judges' scorecards after scoring a takedown three minutes in. Prochazka landed a few punches on the ground, and Pereira returned to his feet near the end of the round.

The momentum seemed to be in Prochazka's favor throughout the second round. He landed solid punches in the pocket and hurt Pereira against the fence.

But as Prochazka pressed the action with just over a minute to go, Pereira caught him with a left hook and dropped him with another one. Prochazka clinched Pereira from his knees as a survival tactic, but Pereira rained down elbows to the side of his head and hurt him even worse. Prochazka slumped to his back, with Pereira essentially falling into full mount as referee Marc Goddard waved off the contest.

The UFC broadcast team questioned whether it was an early stoppage - because Prochazka got up fairly quickly - but the Czech Republic native defended Goddard's decision.

"I think in that end, it was right. I was out," Prochakza said. "But I will never stop. ... If I die, my body will still work."

Prochazka said he will learn from the loss and "be back stronger than ever."

The 31-year-old was widely considered the UFC's No. 1 light heavyweight heading into the bout. He won the light heavyweight title in the 2022 Fight of the Year against Glover Teixeira. But he never had a chance to defend it. Prochazka suffered a serious shoulder injury ahead of a scheduled rematch with Teixeira and relinquished the belt.

Jamahal Hill defeated the now-retired Teixeira to capture the vacant 205-pound title in January, but he, too, relinquished the championship after rupturing his Achilles tendon in July. That gave Prochazka the opportunity to come back and try to regain the title in a vacant title bout against Pereira. Teixeira trains with Pereira in Connecticut and was in his corner Saturday night.

While it's possible Hill will be next in line to challenge Pereira, the new champion did not commit to that matchup because Hill is still recovering from his injury.

"I'm an active fighter, now an active champion," Pereira said through his interpreter. "I know Jamahal is injured, so I don't know if he'll be back on time. ... I want to fight really soon."

Pereira decided to move to light heavyweight after losing the 185-pound title in the Adesanya rematch. "Poatan" made his divisional debut at UFC 291 in July, beating former champion Jan Blachowicz by split decision to earn a shot at the title.

Pereira was ranked No. 3 with Prochazka No. 1 at light heavyweight ahead of Saturday's bout.

Pereira, who debuted in the UFC in November 2021 after his successful kickboxing career, owns four wins over current or former UFC champions: Strickland, Adesanya, Blachowicz, and now Prochazka.

Prochazka suffered his first Octagon loss and dropped to 3-1 in the promotion. His 13-fight winning streak was snapped. Prochazka had been undefeated since 2015.

The former Rizin FF champion knocked out Volkan Oezdemir in 2020 and Dominick Reyes in 2021 to earn a shot at the light heavyweight title against Teixeira in June 2022. Prochazka rallied to submit Teixeira, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace, late in the fifth round of one of the greatest fights in UFC history.