UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jiri Prochazka Vacated His Title after suffering from a severe shoulder injury

UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jiri Prochazka has gotten a severe shoulder injury, due to which he had to vacate his title days before his title defense. Jiri was scheduled to fight Glover Teixeira in the main event of UFC 282 on December 10. Unfortunately, Jiri will need surgery and will be out of action for the next six months.

Jiri Prochazka had an outstanding record of 29-3-1 in MMA. He defeated Glover Teixeira earlier this year at UFC 275 and won the UFC light heavyweight title. The finish came with 28 seconds left in the fight, and he was a front-runner for the fight of the year. His first championship defense was a rematch with the former champion Teixeira. Jiri Prochazka's manager, Tim Simpson, revealed in an interview,

"The shoulder got wrecked in a standard wrestling accident type of thing."

He further explained that Jiri suffered from an injury at the UFC performance center. Their team is still determining the point where the damage occurred.

"You know how shoulders are, right?" Simpson said. "It pops out, and a lot of the time, you pop it right back in. There was a wait, and it popped out. And you never really know with a shoulder until you dig into it."

UFC president Dana White also commented on the situation with a heavy heart because it was the 2nd occasion in the past three months when the main event of his card got scrapped. He talked to doctors and asked about the nature of the injury. Speaking to Yahoo Sports, White said,

"This is the worst shoulder injury the doctors have seen in UFC history," White told Yahoo Sports. "It's really f***ing bad. His shoulder is very, very bad. He's going to have serious surgery that will require extensive rehab."

UFC reached out to Glover Teixeira with a solution to this problem and asked him to face Magomed Ankalaev for the vacant UFC Light Heavyweight Championship. Glover Teixeira refused to face any other opponent. UFC's chief business officer Hunter Cambell commented on the situation and said Glover wanted to get back his title by defeating Jiri, so he refused to face any other opponent. He stated,

"We offered Glover the fight [against Ankalaev]. For some reason, he didn't want the fight, so we had to move on. If we couldn't have the rematch, getting Ankalaev, who has the second-longest winning streak in light heavyweight history, and Blachowicz, the former champion, is really fortunate. It all fell into place for us, as it often seems to do. But that's a great fight, too, and now it's for the full title."

UFC changed the main event of UFC 282. Now, Magomed Ankalaev will face Jan Blachowicz. Ankalaev has the 2nd highest winning streak in the UFC light heavyweight division with nine straight victories. Anaklaev is ranked number 3 in the UFC lightweight heavyweight division with an MMA record of 18-1. His opponent Blachowicz has an MMA record of 29-9 and is currently ranked number two in UFC light heavyweight division.