LAS VEGAS -- It's almost impossible for any fight at UFC 300 to be flying under the radar given all the hoopla that surrounds the most stacked card in the sport's history. But if there is a fight that's not getting the attention it deserves, it's the light heavyweight bout serving as the featured preliminary on ESPN between former champion Jiri Prochazka and Aleksandar Rakic.
If that bout was getting overlooked, Prochazka and Rakic did their best to change that on Wednesday at media day. Rakic had been calling Prochazka "a fake samurai" on social media and was asked about it in the final moments of his media availability. And while he didn't seem to harbor any ill will toward Prochazka, the former champion sure seemed to take it that way.
"I said he's a fake samurai because you cannot become a samurai after just reading a book," Rakic said. "His coach give [the book] to him. If you are a samurai, you have to live this for a long time."
It was pretty innocuous stuff as far as bulletin board material goes. But the book Rakic referenced, "A Book of Five Rings," by Miyamoto Musashi, is a bible of sorts for Prochazka. And when he learned that Rakic had again called him a fake samurai, it was clear he wasn't happy.
"Like I said, he's talking too much," Prochazka said, "He don't know me, but he will know me in the cage, who I am, where I am able to go, how true I can go to take a win. And he don't know me personally. Personally, if you don't know somebody personally, how you can you speak about him about something whatever, even though I never said that about myself."
Prochazka was a street fighter when he was a child and turned into a soccer hooligan. His life turned around when his MMA coach gave him Musashi's body, and it resonated deeply with Prochazka. He has become one of the elite strikers in the world.
He'd won 13 in a row before losing to Alex Pereira in November in their bout for the vacant light heavyweight title. He said Wednesday, though, that he wasn't healthy for the fight, though he didn't elaborate. Prochazka had to pull out of a rematch with Glover Texeira that was set for UFC 282 on Dec. 10, 2022, when he tore up his shoulder. He vacated the light heavyweight title and underwent surgery for what UFC CEO Dana White said was one of the worst shoulder injuries UFC doctors had seen.
Prochazka made no mention of injuries before he fought Pereira, and he did extremely well in the first round before being stopped in the second. Prochazka said Wednesday he had only trained for a week for that bout.
Rakic has had his own injury issues. He was injured during a May 14, 2022, bout with ex-light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz. He underwent surgery and was unable to fight until January. He was supposed to meet Blachowicz in January, but Blachowicz got injured and withdrew. And so he ultimately wound up on the year's biggest card against Prochazka.
Rakic was positive and upbeat during his session with the media, but he kept managing to find ways to annoy Prochazka. Rakic is from Austria and Prochazka from the Czech Republic. He said fans in Europe were highly interested in their bout.
"Me and him are both in the top five [of the light heavyweight rankings] and we're almost the same age, so this fight needed to happen," Rakic said. "You know, the fans want to see it, especially the fans from Europe. They want to see who the king of Europe is and then we claim the world. Or, I claim the world, let's say."
Prochazka was asked about the king of Europe line and he was annoyed by that, as well. He's dreaming much bigger, of regaining the world title and not just looking to be the best on one continent.
As entertaining as the back-and-forth was, though, it should be nothing compared to the fight. This is one of those fights that easily could become Fight of the Night and vault the winner right into a title shot, depending upon what happens in the Pereira-Jamahal Hill fight in the main event.