‘Started on the Soccer, Football’- Prior to UFC 295 Headliner, Jiri Prochazka Reveals Unknown Incident of His Mixed Martial Arts Roots

Jiri Prochazka is one of the most unique fighters in UFC history. With his full beard and unique hairstyle inspired by Thai warriors, the Czech has a dynamic and exciting fighting style unique for its creativity and flair. Owing to this, he became the light heavyweight champion in only his third fight in the UFC, by defeating Glover Teixeira at UFC 275 last year.

However, he got injured soon after and vacated the title as he did not want to hold up the division on his account. But now, he is back and is gearing up to fight former UFC middleweight champion Alex Pereira for the 205-pound title in the main event of UFC 295 on November 11. However, not much is known about his journey to becoming one of the best mixed martial artists of all time. And he opened up on the subject in a recent interview.

Jiri Prochazka documents troubled childhood that began his MMA journey

In a conversation with TNT Sport’s Adam Catterall, Prochazka was asked how he got into mixed martial arts. Prochazka said that his journey started on the soccer fields when he was a young teen, and he would fight members of the opposite team if they became aggressive.

“[My MMA journey] started on the football, soccer [field], when I started to fight there with other opponents from other teams… It was around in my age 13-14 years old when I was like a young guy with a lot of energy,” he told Catterall.

He then moved on to finding people at discotheques and at parties who wanted to fight and square up against them. This, he felt, was because he had a lot of energy, which needed an outlet, and fighting other kids helped him release that energy.

“And I put the energy just for like street fights to find another guy on the discotheques, on the parties who want to fight too and we fight together,” Prochazka added. However, at this point, he had not started training in martial arts. That would come later, as he revealed in the interview.

‘BJP’ on when he started training martial arts

Prochazka continued and revealed that the first time he started formal mixed martial arts training was in high school when he was sixteen or seventeen. He started his MMA journey with Muay Thai, Karate, and Judo to channel his energy.

Read More: Charles Oliveira Going From Lewis Hamilton’s F1 Brazilian GP to Cornering at UFC Sao Paulo to Elves Brener Has Fans in Disbelief- “He Owns That Country”

“And in my age 16-17, I step into the high school and there I started to do Muay Thai and karate, judo. And that helped me to balance this energy. I just looked for some sport or for something that can help me… That was that was my journey to martial arts,” the Czech said in the interview.

And Prochazka has not looked back since then, becoming one of the best strikers in the world right now. He now takes on another world-class striker in ‘Poatan’ with their bout expected to be an electrifying striking masterclass. Who do you think will walk out as the light heavyweight champion? Let us know in the comments section below.

Watch this story: All about Dana White and Vince McMahon’s relationship