Jiří Procházka and the Judas Effect that launched the Anti-Jones into UFC lore
The Echoes of History II
It’s always the suddenness that gets you, the stunning speed at which a virile, athletic god can become a crumpled up heap on the mat, all semblance of life and light departed to another realm.
One moment Dominick Reyes was battling for standing, pride and lucre, to prove himself as one of the very best prize fighters on planet Earth. The next he was fighting a more primal battle, one for consciousness and his very life, all five senses in a losing war with the entropy created by a Jiří Procházka Judas Effect-elbow straight upside the noggin.
In an instant Reyes went from being there to not, his body a vessel devoid of soul and spark. It was scary, violent and, let’s be honest, a little titillating. Reyes’ humiliation was Procházka’s legendary launch party, the binary result of prize fighting more apparent than ever as an epic fight morphed into an epic finish in the time it took for Procházka to do a little light eye poking and a Do-Si-Dos to position himself for the moment of glory.
They were two ships passing in the night—one the Titanic, the other an unyielding block of Czech ice.
For long time fans and observers of the fistic arts, it was a star making performance reminiscent of another Las Vegas night. On January 31, 2009, as I sat next to UFC PR chief Jen Wenk on press row, Jon Jones was a little known prospect in just his second UFC fight. When I flew home on February 1, just hours after his dismantling of Stephan Bonnar, he was something different—he was the future of a sport that evolved at a startling pace.
Obviously it’s way too early to project Jiri as a Jones level fighter. To this point, there has really only been Jones in that class among fighter over 185 pounds. His run at light heavyweight stands alone in MMA history, notable both for his steady dominance and shifting style. Jones didn’t just win fights—he changed the way the entire sport approached a bout, a careful, workmanlike style that put a new premium on distance control and never putting yourself in bad positions.
Jones learned his lesson after fights with Vitor Belfort and Alexander Gustafsson, one in which he almost tossed away near certain victory and another in which he was pushed to the brink. The Jones that emerged was careful to the point of occasional boredom, only finishing two of his next eight fights as the exciting fighter who took the division by storm morphed into a risk-averse round-winning machine.
Procházka, potentially, is a look at the division course correcting back towards the wild West feel that made it the sport’s marquee, money weight class for years. If Jones is loathe to ever put himself at risk, the former RIZIN champion is his polar opposite, cage fighting reckless id.
In the two rounds he spent in the cage with Reyes, Procházka may not have had a single defensively responsible moment. He forced a pace that seemed impossible for men that size, looking at every moment to deal out damage, consequences be damned. The result was spectacular—not just the knockout, but the entire fight, one of those bouts that reminds you just how exciting this martial arts experiment can be.
It could be that in a year’s time, this column will be laughable in hindsight. Rather than a new measuring stick, Procházka may end up being just another action fighter who will eventually pound his brain to mush holding onto a place at the tail end of the top ten. Historically, this kind of risky, all-offense approach has limited utility at the highest level. The comparison point, if you need one, is Justin Gaethje, one of the sport’s most exciting lightweights whose take-no-prisoners approach makes him a 50/50 fighter when matched with an elite opponent.
I won’t pretend to know what the future holds—only that it certainly felt like the division closed the chapter Jones spent more than a decade writing and opened up a fresh new page to paint with blood. Whether it will be Jiri’s or his opponent’s is the question that will keep us tuning in for some time to come.