Luke Rockhold had a rough welcome to the light heavyweight division courtesy of Jan Blachowicz.
At UFC 239 in July 2019, Rockhold moved up to 205 pounds in hopes of a new start to his career. He was coming off a knockout loss to Yoel Romero in an interim middleweight title fight. But things didn’t go as planned for the former 185-pound titleholder. Blachowicz knocked him out in brutal fashion in the second round with a convincing finish that sparked Blachowicz’s best UFC run, which eventually led him to the light heavyweight belt.
You can watch Blachowicz’s brutal finish in the video above.
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Blachowicz returns to the cage Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 291 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City. He welcomes former middleweight champion Alex Pereira to the light heavyweight division.
Blachowicz is coming off a draw against Magomed Ankalaev in a title fight for the vacant light heavyweight title in December 2022. Prior to that, Blachowicz had a TKO win over Aleksandar Rakic in his first fight after he lost the title to Glover Teixeira.
Pereira is coming off a knockout loss to Israel Adesanya in which he lost the middleweight title. The defeat snapped a seven-fight winning streak, which included a TKO win over Adesanya to claim the belt in November 2022.