The good news for Pereira is that Procházka does not have an elite wrestling or grappling background. Preview Every Fight On UFC 295: Procházka vs Pereira

Procházka controlling Pereira through offensive grappling can diminish Pereira’s biggest strength, which is his distance striking. Pereira’s wrestling is not strong, which was evident in his most recent fight against Jan Blachowicz, where Blachowicz took Pereira down three times and racked up over seven minutes of control time in the fight, good for a massive control time percentage of about 50%. Procházka’s best path to victory is through takedowns and offensive grappling. As one of the UFC’s most elite and dangerous strikers, Pereira will have a significant edge as long as he can keep this fight at distance. Pereira is also very rangy and excellent at distance management, which generally keeps him safe from return fire. Pereira’s striking is very diverse, and he attacks everywhere, from calf kicks to high kicks to a stinging jab to a power right hand to his left hook of death. Pereira’s left hook put Israel Adesanya’s lights out in their second kickboxing match and was a key part of the final combination Pereira used to finish Adesanya in their first UFC fight, where Pereira won the middleweight title.

Pereira is a murderous striker who has arguably the greatest left hook in the history of MMA. Procházka absorbing an elevated amount of strikes is alarming for his chances on the feet against Pereira, who is nicknamed “Poatan”, which means “Hands of Stone”. This shows up in Procházka’s striking metrics-Prochazka has avoided just 40% of opponent significant strike attempts, which is a very poor rate. Defensively, Procházka is prone to keeping his hands low, which makes him hittable when he closes the distance to throw strikes. Procházka is aggressive and fights at a quick pace, landing about six significant strikes per minute while absorbing over five significant strikes per minute, two elevated numbers. Procházka is coming off a substantial layoff due to a serious shoulder injury and has not fought since June 2022, creating an element of uncertainty as to how he will look. Pereira primarily trains at Teixeira’s gym in Connecticut, so there will be some familiarity between the two camps for this matchup. Procházka has only fought three times in the UFC but quickly rose to the top of the division, which was capped off by a title fight win over Pereira’s training partner and close friend, Glover Teixeira.

Best bets on draftkings