Alex Pereira vs. Jiri Prochazka 2: UFC 303 Head-to-Toe Breakdown

UFC 303, which is scheduled for June 29 in Las Vegas, was originally expected to be headlined by a blockbuster welterweight scrap between lightweight legends Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler.

When the Irishman suffered an injury in training, though, the fight was canceled and the UFC began a desperate scramble to find a new main event for the card.

Enter Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka.

With mere weeks to prepare, light heavyweight champion Pereira agreed to defend his title in the new main event, and former champion Prochazka agreed to serve as the challenger. Both men deserve major props for agreeing to fight under such difficult circumstances.

It will be the second time they've met in the Octagon. The first time was at UFC 295, last November in New York City, when they competed for the vacant light heavyweight belt.

On that night, Pereira won by second-round TKO, but many felt that the stoppage was a little early, and Prochazka has since reaffirmed himself as a top contender with a thrilling knockout of Aleksandar Rakic at UFC 300.

Pereira, meanwhile, cemented himself as the true king of the light heavyweights with a knockout of former champion Jamahal Hill later that same night.

While the Brazilian is favored to win their upcoming rematch, both men are full of surprises, so there's no telling what will happen until the Octagon door closes.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at how they match up on paper and for our best shot at a prediction.

Pereira and Prochazka are both devastating knockout strikers.

Pereira, a former two-division kickboxing champion, has scored eight of his 10 MMA wins by knockout.

Prochazka, despite a less impressive striking background, has won a staggering 26 of his 30 victories by knockout. Both of these guys are capable of stopping anybody they meet in the Octagon in an instant, including each other.

Interestingly, their styles couldn't be more different.

As a former kickboxer, Pereira has a more refined approach to striking, and he is particularly dangerous with his hooks, jabs to the head and body, and his leg kicks.

Prochazka, who caught on with hardcore fans during his time competing in Japan's Rizin Fighting Federation, is far more chaotic. He fights in a strange, hunched-over stance, with his hands low, and he is just as likely to knock his opponents out with an elbow or knee as he is with a kick or a punch.

It would be ridiculous to rule out the possibility of either man winning the UFC 303 main event by knockout, particularly given that both have been knocked out under MMA rules before.

However, there is no question Pereira is the sharper, more tactical striker. It's also difficult to deny he's at a slight advantage in the striking department given he dropped and stopped Prochazka less than a year ago.

Edge: Pereira

We have seen little of Pereira and Prochazka's ground games, but it's hard not to give the edge in the submission department to the Czech.

Having already had a long and successful career as a kickboxer, Pereira is simply much newer to MMA, and he has had much less time than his rival to develop his grappling.

It is for this reason that many MMA notables—including Daniel Cormier and Anthony Smith—have expressed their confidence that all it will take to beat the light heavyweight champion is good grappling and a smart game plan.

That may be an oversimplification, but the fact of the matter is that Pereira is still relatively new to jiu-jitsu, and he has yet to win a fight by submission.

Prochazka, meanwhile, has been working on the grappling arts for years. While his habit for wild knockouts means we see little of his ground game, he has shown it off before, most notably in his 2022 title win over Pereira's coach and mentor, Glover Teixeira.

Teixeira is one of the best submission grapplers in the history of the UFC light heavyweight division, but Prochazka still managed to find a way to submit the Brazilian in their fight, which was arguably the best of the year. That says something.

He also has two other wins by submission in his career—albeit against lesser competition—which is further evidence that he has a leg up against Pereira on the canvas.

The big question is whether he decides to use his jiu-jitsu in their rematch.

Edge: Prochazka

As mentioned, Pereira and Prochazka prefer to do their fighting on the feet, so we don't see much more of their wrestling than we do of their submissions.

That being said, both men have shot for takedowns in the Octagon in the past.

Pereira shot for a single takedown in his 2022 middleweight title win over Israel Adesanya, and succeeded on it, which gives him a surprising 100 per cent takedown rate overall.

Prochazka, meanwhile, has shot for at least one takedown in four of his five UFC bouts. He's succeeded on several of those, but his takedown success rate is only 60 per cent, due in part to the fact that Pereira stopped two of three takedown attempts the first time they met.

When you consider all of this, it becomes clear that, while Pereira's wrestling seems to be coming along nicely, Prochazka relies on this part of his game a bit more often, and that's probably because he's more comfortable with it.

He's not as good as other light heavyweight contenders like Magomed Ankalaev or Jan Blachowicz when it comes to takedowns, but he's got wrestling to fall back on and a willingness to use it.

Edge: Prochazka

Pereira: Championship Confidence

There were a lot of reasons to doubt Pereira in the early days of his UFC career.

His grappling skill was a total mystery, and even if his takedown defense held up, we had seen other elite kickboxers get knocked out in the UFC before—Gokhan Saki being the best example.

While there are still some people out there who believe Pereira could be undone by a good wrestler or that he'll eventually get caught, there is no longer any questioning his status as an elite MMA fighter. He has now won UFC titles in two divisions, and defended one of them, all against elite competition.

Boxing coach Teddy Atlas claims he was once told by some "old-time trainers" that a fighter instantly becomes 30 per cent better when they become a champion. That seems to be the case with Pereira. He's one of the best mixed martial artists in the world right now, and that's going to make him confident.

Whether that confidence makes him more dangerous or makes him complacent remains to be seen.

Prochazka: Nothing to Lose

Prochazka always fights like he has nothing to lose, often totally abandoning his defense to land a few wild, unpredictable strikes.

This time around, he doesn't have much to lose. He doesn't have a title to defend, and we've already seen him lose to Pereira. If it happens again, not much changes, and it would be all the more forgivable considering the short-notice circumstances of the matchup.

Given all of that, we can probably expect Prochazka to be more gung-ho than ever at UFC 303, throwing caution to the wind in search of a title-winning knockout against one of the promotion's biggest stars.

That may turn out to be just what he needs to dethrone the champion. On the other hand, he may land in hot water even faster than he did when he fought Pereira last year. Time will tell.

It's extremely difficult to call a fight between two knockout artists like Pereira and Prochazka, particularly when they've only had about two weeks to prepare for each other.

There is far too much firepower and far too many variables in this contest to feel confident in one outcome or the other.

Having said that, it's difficult not to lean in the South American's direction. He was able to thwart the majority of Prochazka's takedowns the first time they met and ultimately knocked him out on the feet.

While both men have won by knockout since then—Pereira against Jamahal Hill and Prochazka against Aleksandar Rakic—not much happened in either fight that suggests their rematch will look much different than their first encounter.

Don't sleep on Prochazka, but a Pereira win is the slightly safer bet.

Prediction: Pereira by KO, Rd. 3