One month removed from losing his light heavyweight title to Glover Teixeira at UFC 267, Jan Blachowicz isn’t offering any excuses for his performance other than admitting it was one of the worst of his career.
Following five straight wins in the octagon, including a victory over Israel Adesanya in a rare champion vs. champion fight, Blachowicz came out flat against Teixeira before ultimately suffering a second-round submission loss after the Brazilian locked in a rear-naked choke.
“Everything goes wrong,” Blachowicz said about the fight with Teixeira on The MMA Hour. “I shouldn’t fight that night but what can I do? I can just go back to the training, back to the gym, train harder and try to get the belt back and that’s it. I’m not going to be sad. I’m not going to be thinking about the fight cause I don’t want to waste my life about something like this. I think about the fight, why it goes wrong but I don’t waste time for to be sad. I will not hide under the bed and cry.
“Do a little bit of a break, go on the holidays, vacation and now I’m back to the gym, back to the work. That’s it.”
According to Blachowicz, the struggles he faced that night stemmed more from a mental lapse than anything that was holding him back physically.
“I wasn’t hurt,” he said. “That was just a bad day. I think I would lose with anybody that night. I can’t explain myself. It wasn’t my night. That’s it. I think that’s it. Sometimes I need something like that. I think that I need to lose the fight, I need to take one step back to do two forward.
“When you look at my career, it’s always like this. So this time, I learned something from this fight, and I’m going to be a better fighter. Same thing as the Thiago Santos [fight] and different opponents who beat me.”
While Blachowicz understands that losses are just part of the sport, he’s still struggling to reconcile with his performance in that particular fight. With so much on the line, the 38-year-old Polish powerhouse feels like he just didn’t show up, and that’s probably the toughest pill to swallow.
“I gave the belt [away] for free,” Blachowicz said. “This is the worst for me. But anyways, I’ve still got a couple of years to take it back, and this is my plan.
“That was a bad moment for me. One of the worst in my life. But it was short also because after one day, I think I don’t want to waste my time thinking about to be sad and stuff like this. We just have to [get] back to work. I started training. Two or three weeks off and I’m back to the gym.”
As far as what comes next, Blachowicz is already plotting his return with hopes to fight in March while hinting that the UFC has reached out to him about a potential opponent.
While fellow light heavyweight Anthony Smith recently said he’d be interested in Blachowicz as an opponent, the former champion hinted at another highly ranked fighter serving as his next challenge instead.
“I cannot tell you but I will not fight against Anthony Smith,” Blachowicz said while revealing that the UFC had given him another name. “I don’t choose opponents. Maybe [they asked about Aleksandar Rakic].”
Rakic is currently 6-1 in the UFC with a pair of wins over Smith and Thiago Santos in his most recent fights, and it appears Blachowicz might be the next person to share the octagon with him.
“It’s a good fight,” Blachowicz said about Rakic. “He’s a strong, real fighter. All fighters in the UFC, top 10, top five, they are amazing fighters, and it’s a pleasure for me to fight against all of them. Rakic is good for the next fight but we will see.”
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