Aleksandar Rakic praises Jan Blachowicz: “Hell of a champion and hell of a fighter”
Aleksandar Rakic praised UFC light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz, calling him a “hell of a champion and hell of a fighter.”
At UFC 259 last month, Blachowicz defeated UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in an upset. Not only did Blachowicz outwrestle Adesanya, but he held his own in the striking exchanges, as well, leading to him picking up his first official light heavyweight title defense. On the same card, Rakic defeated Thiago Santos in a fight between two men chasing Blachowicz’s gold. Rakic won that fight and considering he’s the No. 2 ranked fighter in the division, he’s likely only one more win away from potentially fighting Blachowicz or No. 1 contender Glover Teixeira for the UFC belt. It’s no wonder, then, that he paid close attention to Blachowicz’s main event fight against Adesanya later that night.
Speaking to James Lynch, Rakic praised the 205lbs champion. The Austria native said he was incredibly impressed not only with the way Blachowicz dominated the fight in the grappling but also for the improvements he made in his striking.
“Man, Jan did a hell of a job. Everyone was expecting Israel to knock him out in the first or the second. But you could see in this fight that Jan worked on his standup, on his boxing. I know we knew he was a good wrestler and of course, a good grappler, but the striking things, what Jan did at closing the distance, was very good, very impressive. I said if it comes to the clinch and if it comes to the grappling, Jan’s going to win that fight. And you saw this, he did a hell of a job. He beat the middleweight champion and an undefeated guy. So hat’s off. Hell of a champion and hell of a fighter,” Rakic said.
Who do you think would win in a fight between Jan Blachowicz and Aleksandar Rakic?
