Jan Blachowicz vs Glover Teixeira: It won’t be easy for Blachowicz to break Teixeira

On October 30, UFC Fight Island in the UAE will host the UFC 267 tournament, which will feature many Russian fighters. Here is a prediction for the main event of the night — a fight between Jan Blachowicz and Glover Teixeira.

Jan Blachowicz will defend the light heavyweight title, and the fighters have a lot in common: both opened up late, both came to a title fight after many defeats and disappointments.

In 2015-2017, Blachowicz lost four times in five fights, and who would have thought then he would become a champion? Since October 2017, the Pole has had 10 fights and lost only once, to Thiago Santos in 2019. Now he's on a streak of five straight wins, and the last three are incredibly tough:

• Corey Anderson – KO in round 1;
• Dominick Reyes – KO in round 2;
• Israel Adesanya (previoudly undefeated middleweight champion) – by decision.

Jan Blachowicz knows exactly how to win this time too:

«He'll probably try to take me down to the ground, and my plan is to fight him standing. How will our fight end? I see two finishes: either second-round knock-out or he will go down in the fourth round.»

Jan Blachowicz

Last year was truly the year of Teixeira – he fought twice and executed two mega-cool upsets, beating Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos. And now he's on a five-game winning streak, four of them early. And the guy, for a second, is 42 years old and this is his last chance to take the title.

«This is my last chance. Everybody knows that, and so do I. I'm 42 years old, and I'll do whatever it takes to win. Let's make history.»

Glover Teixeira

The Brazilian is a versatile fighter, he has cool boxing, but when it comes to his strongest side, it's certainly wrestling. Well, actually, Teixeira's strongest side is character and toughness. In almost every fight lately, he's been on the brink, a split second away from having the ref stop the fight, but by some miracle, he manages to survive and turn things around a little later. It sounds like a movie script, but that's how Teixeira fights.

It’s always interesting to look at the objective measurements before making a prediction.

Yes, Teixeira has a chance only on the ground, but his fans are very concerned with the fact that the Brazilian's take-down efficiency is getting worse and worse every year, and in his last twelve fights Glover has won only three times by choke or painful hold.

Nevertheless, not all experts are predicting his defeat:

«Everybody’s talking about ‘the polish power.’ Yeah. But Glover has heart and we all have seen Glover get clipped. I dropped him, ‘Marreta’ dropped him, everybody he has fought has dropped him. Even my buddy, Karl Roberson dropped him. But he’s so good at weathering the storm that when he’s coming back, he’s coming back. Even if Jan catches him early on, I don’t see him knocking him out cold. The only person that knocked him out cold is Anthony ‘Rumble’ Johnson. Other than that, he’s always come back to get the finish and I think that’s gonna happen again.»

Corey Anderson

But I'm not going to argue or look for a cheap scoop either – Jan Blachowicz is clearly the favorite. But I'm willing to take a chance and bet that he won't break Teixeira quickly. My bet is Total Over 2.5 for odds of 1.87.