Navajo Stirling didn’t expect Jiri Prochazka to say yes. The City Kickboxing light heavyweight told Ariel Helwani he was surprised the former 205-pound champion accepted the fight, and he was happy to explain why he thinks the Czech made a risky call.
“He’s got a lot to lose, because I don’t have much to lose at all and I’ve got everything to gain, just like my last fight,” Stirling said, according to Helwani’s post on X.
Then came the part Prochazka’s camp will be reading twice. “It’d be pretty sketchy for him to fight another CKB fighter. He’s going up against the same gym, same coaches, so we’re able to break him down a little bit.”
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That gym already has a blueprint, and Prochazka knows it. In April at UFC 327, Carlos Ulberg knocked him out with a left hook and follow-up punches at 3:45 of Round 1 to win the vacant light heavyweight title, which opened up when Alex Pereira moved to heavyweight to chase a third belt. Ulberg also picked up votes in Yahoo Sports’ October pound-for-pound rankings.
In the latest UFC Meta Rankings, updated after UFC 332, Prochazka sits at No. 3 at light heavyweight behind Pereira and Magomed Ankalaev. Stirling is No. 7. On paper that’s the classic lopsided risk Stirling described: a former champ fighting down the ladder against a hungry contender with a whole gym’s worth of film study behind him.
Prochazka also wasn’t the first name attached to Stirling. Israel Adesanya, another CKB fixture, said in a clip shared on X by Dovy that Paulo Costa was supposed to face Stirling before that fight fell through. Adesanya had a theory: “He probably said no because of flashbacks, he didn’t want to see that stance across the cage.” That’s Adesanya’s read, not Costa’s explanation, and Costa hasn’t been quoted on it in anything we’ve seen.
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The obvious follow-up is the one nobody at City Kickboxing seems eager to answer. If Stirling beats Prochazka, he’s a logical name for Ulberg, his teammate under the same management. Stirling told Helwani the decision would go back to the team if the UFC wanted that fight.
“I don’t know how I’d feel. It’s just something I’ve never really thought about, and I try not to think about. Those conversations have come up, but mostly joking around. We can’t really sort it out until I win.”
Stirling also told Helwani he’s serious about training in Dagestan, noting that Islam Makhachev keeps extending invites that American fighters aren’t taking. His pitch for himself was simple: “I ain’t got no kids, bro.” He’d start with two or three weeks, he said, which is a reasonable trial run for a guy who’s never been to that part of the world.
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My take: credit to Prochazka for taking a fight that offers him very little upside, because those are the fights that make a division worth watching. But Stirling has a point, and I like that he said it plainly instead of dressing it up. The CKB coaches have already solved this puzzle once in this calendar year, and it took them 3:45.
