UFC 311’s Jamahal Hill: Respect of Peers Means More Than “Any Weirdo Sitting In His Mom’s Basement”

Los Angeles — When Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka meet at UFC 311 this Saturday, it will be a fight that in some sense has been years in the making.

While Prochaza’s run to the top of the division saw the pair booked to fight previously, “I wanted to fight him long before that,” Hill (12-2, 1NC) explained during Wednesday’s UFC 311 media day. “First time I asked for this fight was maybe back in 2021 when he just got here.”

“I’d already had it in my mind, yup this is a guy to be aware of, be on the lookout for, and we eventually might meet.”

As to what drew his attention to Prochazka, it wasn’t the Czech fighter’s run with RIZIN, but rather his UFC debut opposite Volkan Oezdemir.

“I didn’t really know who he was or know anything about his career before he got to the UFC. It was just his style. He came in, he burst on the scene in a very big way with a big knockout over a guy that’s been here for a while, who I thought I might be on a collision course to,” said Hill. “But then after that it was like okay, this guy’s got a fun style, this guy’s got an exciting style and it’d be nice to share the cage with him. I believe we’d put on a good show.”

Over the years, Hill has endured criticism from fans online, both for actions in the cage and controversy outside of it, including allegations that he assaulted his brother. A meme of Hill knocked out of the hands of Alex Pereira at UFC 300 proved enduring, and Hill has not been shy at clapping back.

His peers, including Michael Bisping, Luke Rockhold, and fellow UFC 311 fighters Islam Makhachev and Umar Nurmagmedov, have had different takes, with the latter two picking Hill to win this Saturday. That means more to Hill himself than any of the chatter online.

“As far as everything for the stuff online, it’s just people talking. I understand, I understand that it’s hard to watch other people do things that maybe you wish that you could do, or maybe that you would want to do, or maybe you don’t have the courage to do and then you want to spit out some venom and try to bring them down to a certain level of maybe where you are, or maybe you feel about yourself. So I just don’t really focus on that,” stated Hill. “It’s more the fact that the guys that are actually in here, that take the same risk as me and do it, and they respect it and they understand what I’m putting into this, that means a lot more than any weirdo sitting in his mom’s basement, talking with Cheeto dust and sh*t.”

Despite that, Hill does interact with fans in person, and noted that “people are respectful to my face.”

“I’ve never had a fan come up to me and come with any of the type of energy that you see online. But that’s why they do it online.”

Watch the full UFC 311 media day appearance with Jamahal Hill above.