By:  | May 17, 2022 11:58 am

In certain circles it is traditional to have a beer at the airport regardless of what time your flight happens to be departing. Jiri Prochazka and his team are clearly firm believers in this ritual as he shared a photo of them enjoying a cold one on their way to Phuket.

Prochazka, who faces Glover Teixeira at UFC 275 next month, shared the image on Instagram:

Training camp

Prochazka is flying to Phuket in order to spend the final weeks of his training camp at Bang Tao Muay Thai. He will headline the event which takes place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium on June 12th.

Several fighters on the card will be at Bang Tao MMA. Among them is Weili Zhang who is facing Joanna Jedrzejczyk in an eagerly anticipated rematch.

Zhang has been training in Phuket for several weeks in order to prepare for a fight that looks set to be a strawweight eliminator:

Frequent flyer

It is unclear whether the former strawweight champion also had a beer at the airport. She certainly didn’t share a photo of herself drinking.

But Prochazka is a veteran of flights from Europe to Asia. He fought for Rizin 11 times, becoming the promotion’s light heavyweight champion in the process.

In 2020 he signed with the UFC and Prochazka has won two fights out of two for the promotion. He is currently ranked #2 and will be challenging for the light heavyweight title in Singapore.

Early start

While Prochazka is very experienced when it comes to competing in Asia this will be his first time fighting in the morning. UFC 275 is a pay per view and will get underway at 6:30am local time.

A few weeks in Phuket should give the Czech fighter an opportunity to get used to the climate and time difference. He will be looking to become the first fighter in history to win titles with both Rizin and the UFC.

Prochazka takes a very impressive 12 fight winning streak into this contest. He has a lot of momentum behind him as he heads into the title bout with Teixeira who turns 443 later this year.

Prochazka will presumably be laying off the beer for the next few weeks as he puts the final touches to his preparation for this five round fight. But it is still reassuring to see that, in some respects at least, these finely tuned elite athletes are not that different from you and me!