Jan Blachowicz had a hard time seeing Aleksandar Rakic in the first round.
Blachowicz was looking to get back into the win column after losing his title to Glover Teixeira and early on against Rakic, he had some adversity to overcome. Rakic landed a solid shot to the left eye of Blachowicz and he says right after it landed he went blind in the eye for the first round.
“That was one of the first punches in the first round,” Blachowicz said on The MMA Hour. “[It bothered me] very much. I don’t see nothing. The first round, I was blind in [my left eye] because blood was everywhere in my eye, so I just kept [wiping] the blood from the eye. In second round, I was just afraid that he would destroy a little bit more. But I was focused and ready for everything.”
After the injury, Jan Blachowicz says he knew he couldn’t worry about it, and instead just needed to focus on winning the fight. He was also cautious of avoiding any further shots to the eye which he did and he ended up getting the third-round TKO by leg injury.
“I was a little bit worried, but I don’t think about [the injury],” Blachowicz said. “I just tried to hide this eye to not have more punches on this place. Also, between the first and second round, I was a little bit worried because when I see the face of the doctor, his face was a little bit not good for me, and I said, ‘Uh oh.’ But the second doctor come and say, ‘OK, he’s OK, he can fight.’ I said, ‘I’m OK, let’s go.’ But I was worried because his face didn’t look nice.”
With Blachowicz getting his hand raised, he hopes he will get a light heavyweight title shot next time out against the winner of Teixeira-Jiri Prochazka.
“Come on, it’s the fight, you have to [continue],” Blachowicz said. “A long time ago, one of my coaches said, ‘If nobody hit you so hard that you go down, then the punch doesn’t exist.’ So I will be in the fight until the end of it, the whole 25 minutes if I have to.”
