Carlos Ulberg won the light heavyweight championship at UFC 327 in Miami on Saturday, then said on Monday that he had lost the belt after the fight. The New Zealander beat Jiri Prochazka by knockout, but now finds himself talking less about the title he won and more about where it ended up.
“I’ve lost the belt, bro,” Ulberg said on Fox Sports Australia. “I don’t know exactly where it is.”
Ulberg said the celebration started in the cage with his team and family and kept going well after the fight. “Initially after winning, the plan was to not have a drink. But you know how these things go, right? First, someone gives you a champagne to celebrate. Then one thing leads to another and you’re doing shots. So it’s ‘OK, I’ll have another, and another, and another…’” he said. He added that the night moved on to a nightclub and then an afterparty, before the belt was left behind at one of the boys’ apartments. “I didn’t want to be carrying the belt around so I think it’s still there at the apartment somewhere. One of the boys probably has it in bed with him,” he said.
The missing hardware is only part of the problem. Ulberg tweaked his knee early in the first round of the UFC 327 main event, and he said the joint was badly swollen after the win. “My knee is really swollen so I’ll stay in the U.S. for scans and then, if I need to go under the knife, I will,” he said. He also said he plans to fly to Las Vegas in the next few days to see doctors there and could do physiotherapy at the UFC Performance Institute if needed.
The injury complicates a title run that came after a long climb. Ulberg was signed off Dana White’s Contender Series after just his fourth pro MMA fight, then lost his UFC debut before stringing together 10 consecutive victories. He had competed in kickboxing before turning fully to MMA, and Saturday’s knockout of Prochazka looked like the peak of that rise even as he was visibly compromised inside the cage.
What happens next is the question that matters most. Ulberg said he may need surgery, and the source of the injury, combined with the length of his U.S. stay for scans, raises the possibility that he could be forced to give up the championship he won in Miami.
