Sean O'Malley believes Jiri Prochazka's 'mercy' claim in UFC 327 loss

Sean O'Malley thinks Jiri Prochazka had Carlos Ulberg finished but failed to capitalize at UFC 327.

Prochazka (32-6-1 MMA, 6-3 UFC) had an injured Ulberg (14-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) in front of him but wound up getting caught with a left hook that knocked him out in the first-round of their vacant light heavyweight title fight this past Saturday at Kaseya Center in Miami.

The likes of coach Ray Longo and Henry Cejudo took umbrage with Prochazka claiming that showing Ulberg "mercy" is what cost him, but O'Malley finds it hard not to believe him.

"Jiri says he felt bad, he felt mercy, or he didn't want to hurt him," O'Malley said on his YouTube channel. "If anyone else said that, I would be like, 'Man.' But Jiri, I kind of believe him. If he could have knocked him out with a right hand, he would have. Maybe in his head he did feel it, and it might have played into it a little bit, but you could just see the heartbreak on Jiri. That motherf*cker's going to have a tough time sleeping for a couple of weeks.

"Every time he closes his eyes on the bed, it goes through your mind, 'What could I have done?' And his fight, it literally was in the palm of his hands, and now he's not – he was almost UFC world champion, and now he's not. He's going to lay down like this and go, 'F*ck' Losing sucks. When you lay your head down on that pillow at night, you're just like, 'F*ck, all right. I guess I'm going to go to sleep.' Poor Jiri."

Prochazka's tendency to keep his hands down while stalking his prey has worked for the most part throughout his career, but when Ulberg was backed up on one leg, he timed the left hook perfectly.

"Jiri literally had it. He like 90 percent had him finished," O'Malley said. "His (Ulberg) leg, something was going on with his stuff. Every time he threw that calf kick, that leg kick, Carlos just ate it. He wasn't even throwing right hands behind it, he was just eating them, and Jiri just didn't capitalize on it.

"Kind of rushes in, he has Carlos backed up against the cage, Carlos has a right hand, and a left hook, pretty much that's it, and Jiri's hand is just down by his hip. It's hard to say you can't fight like that, because f*cking look at it, dude's had a crazy career. But God, when your hand's down by your f*cking hip, and you're fighting someone who counters that hard. God, dude, I just feel bad for Jiri. I literally felt his f*cking post-fight speech."

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Sean O'Malley feels bad for Jiri Prochazka after UFC 327 loss