Whenever Jan Blachowicz has a fight coming up in Las Vegas, he likes to get into town early. Understandable, given the nine-hour time difference from his native Poland among plenty of other factors.
For this upcoming fight against Magomed Ankalaev on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena, Blachowicz (29-9, 18 finishes) booked his flights — from Warsaw to London to Vegas — for Nov. 23, 17 days in advance of UFC 282. All was well after the first leg, and he settled in for some sleep and a little bit of video games for his trip over the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, the wheels of change were in motion on the ground. Jiri Prochazka, who had been scheduled to defend his title for the first time in a rematch of an instant-classic war with Glover Teixeira in the event’s headliner, was vacating the belt in the wake of a devastating shoulder injury. Attempts to make Teixeira-Anakalev the new title fight fell through, so the UFC’s next plan was to elevate Blachowicz-Ankalaev to a fight for the vacant light heavyweight crown.
By the time Blachowicz had landed, his manager and fiancée Dorota Jurkowska was already letting him know of the raised stakes in his new fight, giving him the chance to regain the prize he had lost to Teixiera last October.
“I read the message four times, and I cannot what she [wrote] to me,” Blachowicz, recalling his disbelief, recently told The Post via Zoom.
After taking a few moments to catch up his coaches and let the turn of events sink in, it was back to work for Blachowicz, who first became the UFC champion in September 2020. Not that much changed in the way of preparation, even with the fight now scheduled for five rounds rather than three.
Little adjustments were made to account for the longer fight, but five rounds is old hat for Blachowicz, whose originally-scheduled bout with Ankalaev would have been his first three-rounder since July 2019. Each of his last six contests were planned for five.
“I prefer five rounds,” Blachowicz said. “My cardio is OK. I don’t need to completely change everything. I just changed my way of thinking.”
And even though Blachowicz won inside the distance in three of those five-round contests — going 5-1 overall — he likes the way he performs when he has more time to work with. Case in point: his first and only successful title defense against then-middleweight champ Israel Adesanya in March 2021. The two champions were competitive through three rounds, but the larger Blachowicz leaned on his grappling to more convincingly take the final two rounds and lock up the decision.
Blachowicz says it allows him to “feel the flow.”
“Of course, I’ve got a couple of wins in [the] first round, in [the] second round, but I feel that when the fight goes longer, I just feel better,” says the 39-year-old, eight-year UFC veteran.
Ankalaev (18-1, 10 finishes), the 30-year-old from MMA hotbed Dagestan, Russia, rarely has looked vulnerable in his gradual climb to his first UFC title opportunity. His only loss came in his UFC debut via tapout with one second left against noted submission ace Paul Crag, in a fight he looked poised to win just moments before. Since then, he’s racked up five wins by (T)KO, and his last four victories are against men who were in the UFC’s top 15 this year.
But in one of only two UFC rounds Ankalaev lost — the second frame of his only five-rounder with the promotion against Thiago Santos this past March — he tasted the Brazilian’s power and was dropped before recovering to win the decision. Blachowicz packs plenty of Legendary Polish Power — in his words — and surely must feel confident about having that tool in his box. Nevertheless, he’s keeping any assessment of Ankalaev’s skills and how the two match up close to the vest pre-fight, allowing only that Ankalaev’s record indicates “he has to be very good.”
A victory would make Blachowicz a rare two-time UFC champion. Knowing what it feels like to hold the distinction as the best in the world at 205 pounds makes this pursuit something he wants “much more than the first time.”
“It’s like [a] drug; just need to take it,” Blachowicz, with a laugh, jokes of that championship feeling. “And I want it.”
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