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Jamahal Hill‘s fighting Glover Teixeira for the UFC light heavyweight title Saturday night … but he’s already got an idea of who he wants to scrap with once he’s the champ — Jiri Procházka.
TMZ Sports talked to 31-year-old Hill ahead of his UFC 283 main event fight against the legendary Brazilian fighter … when we asked the 11-1 striker if he was bothered by people saying he doesn’t deserve to fight for the strap.
“From the consensus that I’ve been hearing a lot of, it’s I ‘don’t deserve the title shot.’ I think even Jiri said that which is crazy as hell to me because he only had like 2 wins and he got a title shot. That’s weird, know what I’m saying?” Hill asked, making his point.
“Not just that, it’s all love and all respect to Glover and everything like that, but at the same time, bro, if you lose your title and don’t defend your title, why do you deserve a title shot? Why do you deserve an immediate rematch for a title shot? It’s just funny.”
Jamahal, who is in the midst of a 3-fight win streak (Jimmy Crute, Johnny Walker, Thiago Santos), is particularly interested in 30-year-old Procházka.
“I’ve wanted the Jiri fight for years. I’m hearing his shoulder isn’t as bad as they thought it was. He can be back by the summer. S**t, run that. That’s a thousand percent what I want,” Hill told us.
“I’ve been ready to show him the levels to even the style that he thinks he’s good at.”
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We also talked to Glover … who won the belt in October 2021, taking it from Jan Blachowicz, before himself losing to Procházka in June 2022.
Let’s just say Glover isn’t content with having been champ once … he may be 12 years older than Jamahal, but he’s hungry as hell!
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Flyweight champ Deiveson Figueiredo and interim flyweight champ Brandon Moreno are also on the card … fighting for a record 4th time.
#5 ranked welterweight Gilbert Burns and #12 ranked Neil Magny will also battle in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil … home country of Glover, Gilbert, and Figgy.
UFC 283 goes down Saturday night on ESPN+.
