Blachowicz at 43: “Am I Crazy? YES!”
The Pole says he has just signed another UFC contract, and going into Saturday's fight with unbeaten Navajo Stirling in Belgrade he wants a finish. Four fights without a win all ended on the scorecards.
The photo Jan Blachowicz posted before flying to Belgrade has no belt in it and no cameras. A sheet of paper on a desk, a wooden dip pen loaded with ink, and a hand signing. What turns the picture into news is the line he wrote under it.
Every signature tells a story. I’ve just signed another new chapter with the UFC. Am I crazy? YES! But I simply can’t get enough.
The Pole is 43 and the second-oldest fighter on the entire UFC roster, with only Stephen Thompson ahead of him, by thirteen days. He could have stopped with the belt on a shelf. Instead he signed again, and on Saturday he walks into the cage at Belgrade Arena.
Four fights, no win
Blachowicz is a former light heavyweight champion and he defended that title once, against Israel Adesanya at UFC 259. He is still ranked fourth in the division. What has happened since is why this Belgrade booking is not a routine line on a card:
- a draw with Magomed Ankalaev
- a decision loss to Alex Pereira
- a decision loss to Carlos Ulberg
- a majority draw with Bogdan Guskov, in December 2025 at UFC 323
Four fights, no win, and every one of them decided by three people sitting at a table beside the cage. The last time he had his hand raised was before the Ankalaev draw, so before December 2022. The Pereira fight, another from that run, took place in Salt Lake City three years ago to the day.
Why is Blachowicz asking for a finish?
Because the scorecards have taken four straight results off him, results he believed he had earned. He said it plainly, without the usual fight-week bragging and without any hedging.
I need this win so much; no judges please. I need to finish this fight before time is up.
Coming from a man who won a title and defended it, that is not a line written for headlines. It is a fighter who knows that at 43 the runway has shortened and that he needs a clean result rather than arithmetic counted minute by minute.
Who is Navajo Stirling?
The opponent in Belgrade is Navajo Stirling, unbeaten and ranked fifteenth at light heavyweight. He is 28, from New Zealand, trains at City Kickboxing, and reached the UFC through season eight of the Contender Series.
His five promotional wins break down like this: decisions over Tuco Tokkos, Ivan Erslan and Rodolfo Bellato, and second-round stoppages of Bruno Lopes and Ion Cutelaba. His last two nights of work never reached the judges either.
That is the catch in Blachowicz’s request. Across from him stands a man who has removed two opponents in a row before the end of round two. A finish looks likely enough. Which way it falls is the open question.
A fight that came out of someone else’s move
Belgrade was never supposed to be Stirling. Blachowicz had a rematch booked with Guskov, the man he drew with in December, but Guskov was moved to an earlier show and the Pole was left without an opponent. Instead of unfinished business he got a fighter fifteen years younger, unbeaten, sitting at the bottom of the top fifteen.
The risk here is not shared evenly. If Stirling loses, he loses the zero and goes back to the end of the queue with years still in front of him. If Blachowicz goes a fifth fight without a win, he loses the whole argument behind that post about a new chapter. First bell in Belgrade is on Saturday, August 1, at UFC Fight Night 283.
