Jiri Prochazka Ethnicity, Religion: Where Is the UFC Star From?

Many fans have gladly embraced the former UFC light heavyweight champ, Jiri Prochazka, as a modern-day samurai. His character reflects qualities such as discipline, honor, and loyalty, which are reminiscent of the values that shaped samurais in the past. According to reports, he abides by the “Bushido Code”, a set of principles that served as a guide for the lives of samurais.

Even his fighting style is nothing short of extraordinary and has stunned several UFC fans to date. It consists of a brutal mix of kickboxing and karate, giving him the ability to strike from unbelievable positions and impossible angles. Prochazka’s impressive record and fascinating training methods have often propelled fans to learn more about his origins. As we inch closer to his rematch against Alex Pereira at UFC 303, let’s take a keener look at the facts available to learn more about Prochazka’s early life and roots.

Is Jiri Prochazka Czech? His ethnicity, nationality, and religion

A look at any legit MMA statistics website will tell us that Prochazka represents the Czech Republic in the UFC. However, his birthplace adds an interesting layer of history to his nationality. The country in which Prochazka was born doesn’t exist today. The former UFC light heavyweight king was born on October 14, 1992, in Znojmo, which was a part of Czechoslovakia at the time. And it was his birthplace that ensured Prochazka would hold a Czech nationality.

In 1992, the federation of Czechoslovakia was dissolved into two separate nations: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. His birthplace came into the area under the Czech Republic, thus granting him Czech nationality. Reports also say that he has a mixed ethnicity. Jiri Prochazka’s birthplace of Znojmo mostly has Czechs, but the region also includes people like the Moravians, Slovaks, and Ukrainians. His ethnicity could have traces of any of these communities, apart from his Czech roots.

Jiri Prochazka is not a big believer in religion. During an interview with ESPN, he claimed that being a member of a modern society doesn’t require an individual to believe in religion. “I don’t believe in religion, because the modern human has to know there is no religion. There is just energy – [the] energy of belief,” said Jiri Prochazka. Instead, the former champion adopted the teachings of the ‘The Book of Five Rings’ by Miyamoto Musashi. Now, let’s have a look at his parents’ backgrounds.

Jiri Prochazka’s parents

Jiri Prochazka experienced the profound loss of his father, a major source of support in his life, at the age of six. His father was a Czech native, while his mother, who’s still alive and in living color, has Vietnamese roots. But such early hardships often forge the strongest of people, and Prochazka is no exception. The pain this loss gave him at the tender age of six instilled in him the ability to endure and deal with pain.

MMA really turned Jiri Prochazka’s life around because he found his place in the sport and at 31 years of age, he has already amassed a superb professional MMA record of 30 wins, 4 losses, and 1 draw in 35 professional fights. But as he gears up to fight Alex Pereira at UFC 303 next, will he be able to add another victory to his record in his next outing and finally capture the title that he never lost?

Let us know your predictions for the UFC 303 main event in the comments down below.