Half a month before Jan Blachowicz’s last fight in December, UFC light heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka suffered an injury outside the cage and opted to vacate the title.
Half a month before Blachowicz’s next scheduled fight, against former middleweight champ Alex Pereira in the UFC 291 co-main event on Saturday (10 p.m. ET, pay-per-view) in Salt Lake City, UFC light heavyweight champion Jamahal Hill abdicated his crown after suffering an injury outside of competition.
There’s an eerie pattern forming, and Blachowicz (29-9-1, 18 finishes) is at the heart of it.
Is this former champion of the 205-pound weight class putting his notorious Legendary Polish Power to nefarious use?
“Yes, I use Polish magic,” Blachowicz jests with a laugh, humoring a question during a recent Zoom call with The Post. “No. I’m using my magic, but only before my own fight. I don’t use [it] when somebody [else] fights. I’m gonna use [it] against Pereira, not to anybody else.”
Last time the division’s champ relinquished the belt, Blachowicz was already scheduled to face Magomed Ankalaev the same night Prochazka was to defend his throne in a rematch against Glover Teixeira.
When Prochazka fell out, Blachowicz versus Ankalaev was elevated to pay-per-view headlining status, and the fight was changed from a three-round, non-title affair to a championship five-rounder.
That fight ended in a draw, leading to the UFC putting Teixeira against Hill in the next month’s main event, again with gold on the line.
By now, it seems the UFC opted against an immediate title fight to stick a belt around someone’s waist, meaning Blachowicz versus Pereira would proceed as the originally planned, three-round contest before lightweight headliners Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje vie for the nominal BMF title go at it in Utah.
Not that the light heavyweight co-headliner is without meaning, Blachowicz believes there’s a reward for the winner.
“After this fight, me or Alex — I believe that’s gonna be me — we’re gonna have [a] title shot,” Blachowicz says. “My next fight after Pereira will be, I think, Jiri Prochazka. So for me, nothing changed; it’s just this. For now, I focus only about Alex. I don’t think about what’s gonna happen later.”
With his gaze pointed directly at Pereira, who lost his middleweight title in a rematch with Israel Adesanya after unseating him last November at Madison Square Garden, Blachowicz is up to the challenge of testing his striking against the decorated kickboxer.
“He was a world champion in kickboxing, so I have to be careful,” says Blachowicz, who turned 40 earlier this year, “but I want to try my stand-up against him in the cage. … I am curious how I’m gonna feel [against] his stand-up, how I’m gonna feel against him. But if I’m gonna feel bad, if I take too many punches, OK, let’s go, let’s do wrestling.”
Pereira (7-2, six finishes), is essentially an MMA neophyte. He won the middleweight crown in his fourth UFC bout, 53 weeks after making his promotional debut also at the Garden.
He had just three MMA bouts in 2015-16 — while making a name for himself as one of the best kickboxers at both middleweight and light heavyweight — before committing full time to this sport in 2020.
Blachowicz, whose bout against Pereira will be his 40th in MMA, knows he can lean on his 16 years of pro experience in mixed martial arts.
That said, Blachowicz remains wary of Pereira and holds great respect for his mentor Teixeira, who took the 205-pound title from him two years ago.
“[Pereira] trains with Glover; Glover is [a] very good grappler, very good wrestler,” Blachowicz says. “He’s also going to be ready for that. I think it’s gonna be [a] tough fight for both of us.”