The UFC will see light heavyweight champion Glover Teixeira look to defend his title in his home country against surging dynamo Jiri Prochazka at UFC 274 on May 7.
The UFC light heavyweight champion will get the hometown treatment as Glover Teixeira is set for his first title defense against Jiri Prochazka on May 7. ESPN was first to report the news. The event is scheduled to be UFC 274.
Teixeira (33-7) will enjoy a home country welcome after enjoying one of the greatest career resurgences in UFC history. A professional since 2002, Teixeira bounced back from a 2-3 run to go on a six fight win-streak that culminated in winning the light heavyweight championship last year. Teixeira’s recent list of victories includes former title challengers Anthony Smith, Thiago Santos, and then champion Jan Blachowicz last October.
Prochazka (28-3-1) is on a twelve fight win-streak that saw him win and defend the RIZIN light heavyweight championship before coming over to the UFC in 2020. With a reputation for being an exciting fighter prior to coming to the UFC, Prochazka’s rise to western audiences has been meteoric as knockouts of Volkan Oezdemir and Dominick Reyes in the first round catapulted him to the top of the division and the de-facto number one contender despite the fact that it will have been over a year since his last fight.
The event is set to take place in Brazil which the UFC has not visited since in two years. Notably, their last event in the country was on March 14, 2020 at the beginning of closures due to the global pandemic. The event in question took place in Brasilia and over the course of the week went from being scheduled to be in front of a full arena to having no spectators in attendance. The UFC did have another card scheduled in 2020 in Brazil but the event was eventually cancelled.
