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.
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.