Blachowicz Vs Rakic Rebooked For UFC Vegas 54

Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) light heavyweight champion Jan Blachowicz will look to bounce back from his submission loss to Glover Teixeira at the expense of No. 3-ranked title contender Aleksandar Rakic when they hook ‘em up in the UFC Vegas 54 headliner on Sat., May 14, 2022 inside APEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.

That’s according to a tweet from MMA reporter Ariel Helwani.

Blachowicz (28-9) captured the light heavyweight title with a thunderous knockout victory over Dominick Reyes at UFC 253 in late 2020, then defended the belt against Israel Adesanya the following March. Unfortunately for fans of “Polish Power,” Blachowicz folded fairly easily in his return against Teixeira.

Rakic (14-2) jumped out to four straight wins under the UFC banner with two first-round knockouts, then suffered a setback when the judges sided with Volkan Oezdemir at UFC Fight Night 165. “Rocket” got back on his horse and rattled off another two victories over Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos to keep his spot in the 205-pound title chase.

The winner of Blachowicz vs. Rakic could secure a crack at the winner of this fight.

Their 205-pound showdown was originally scheduled for UFC Columbus on March 26; however, the former champ went down with injury and the bout got postponed. As of this writing, the bookies have the 39 year-old Blachowicz as a slight underdog for his Octagon return, but you can expect that line to tighten up as we get closer to fight night.