Uros Medic Nears UFC Top 10, Blachowicz on the Brink
The day after UFC's first Serbian event, the math is in: Uros Medic is being talked up as a top 10 welterweight, while Jan Blachowicz is facing the end of his UFC contract.
Anyone who stepped out for a drink before the main event at Belgrade Arena on Saturday night came back to an empty cage. Uros Medic finished his business with Daniel Rodriguez in thirty seconds. Sunday then brought what always follows a night like that: the math.
The first tally came before noon. Writing for SB Nation and Yahoo Sports at 11:00 UTC, Adam Guillen named Medic the biggest winner of UFC’s first event in Serbia, projecting that the Serbian fighter now belongs among the top ten welterweights. The same analysis carries the number that explains why so many people are in a hurry to put him there: this was Medic’s fourth straight first round knockout, and twelve of his fourteen wins have come the same way. He also picked up a $100,000 performance bonus.
Four fights, barely minutes of work
The number that best sums up his past year is not wins but time on the clock. The longest of Medic’s last four fights lasted one minute and twenty seconds, against Jeff Neal. The other three were shorter, meaning all four combined add up to less work than a single scheduled round.
How the rankings get counted also varies by outlet. In a piece published at 3:25 p.m., Mozzart Sport’s V. Popovic had Rodriguez and Medic standing next to each other before the fight, 13th and 14th. Cageside Press, running the same media poll, puts Medic 14th and Rodriguez 15th. A one spot difference looks small until you remember the entire debate is about exactly those spots.
How far is Medic from a title shot?
By Mozzart Sport’s math, two more wins of this kind. Not two wins by any means necessary, but two finished fast and without argument, because that is how names get skipped in the welterweight division, not by working down the rankings in order. After the fight, Medic repeated that Leon Edwards is still his first choice, while at the same time ending his own campaign for that fight.
“Leon Edwards is next, probably. If he wants to accept the fight, great. I’m not going to call him out anymore. If he doesn’t want to fight, I’ll fight someone else. It’s not a problem.”
When we reported his comments right after the fight, the deadline he set himself was a title in Serbia next year. A proposal that has since arrived from the United States points somewhere else. Writing for Sherdog in a piece Yahoo Sports published on August 1 at 22:12 UTC, meaning already past midnight in Belgrade, Tyler Treese offered Medic (14-3) a fight with Belal Muhammad (24-6, one no contest). Muhammad is 38 and on a three fight losing streak, the last of them to Gabriel Bonfim. The name carries weight, but the risk is not the same as with Edwards, and that is a difference Medic’s camp can certainly read.
The clock is ticking on Blachowicz
The other end of that night belongs to Jan Blachowicz. The Pole arrived in Belgrade ranked fourth among light heavyweights and left without a win in his last five fights, going 0-3-2 over that stretch. He last had his hand raised in May 2022, and only because Aleksandar Rakic tore up his knee mid fight. The analysis published on Yahoo Sports goes all the way, stating that the former champion faces the end of his UFC contract if he does not start winning again.
The man who beat him was not even supposed to be on the card. Navaho Sterling took the fight on short notice, stepping in for Bogdan Guskov, and is now 6-0 in the UFC, with his last three wins all coming by TKO. Treese has proposed Khalil Rountree (14-7, one no contest) as his next opponent, with the winner of that fight moving into light heavyweight title contention.
What Belgrade means for the rest of the card
The proposals do not stop at the main and co-main events. The analysis pulled three more names off the Arena card:
- Aleksandar Rakic (15-6) marked his heavyweight debut with a win over Marcin Tybura, and Walter Walker (16-1) is the next opponent being floated for him.
- In the middleweight division, a fight is being proposed between Gilbert Urbina (8-4), who finished Vlasta Cepo in 61 seconds, and Robert Valentin (12-6), who choked out Dusko Todorovic with a guillotine.
- The card itself broke a promotion record: twelve fights ended in a stoppage, more than at any UFC event before it.
All of this is still media speculation, not promoter announcements. The UFC has not named an opponent or a date for Medic’s next fight. My read is that a call for someone ranked around tenth is more likely to come than one for Edwards, since the Serb called out the Briton last time and got Rodriguez instead. If he lands a name like that and closes it out the way he has the last four, the title stops being a wish and becomes a matter of scheduling.
