The PFL is coming back for its first season in over a year after the pandemic forced it to take an extended pause, and they’re making their return with a bang.
The MMA promotion has announced that their first show of the 2021 season will be headlined by a match between former UFC champion Anthony Pettis and boxing star Clay Collard. The fight will mark Pettis’ PFL debut; he signed with the company very shortly after parting ways with the UFC late last year. Collard also fought for the UFC a few years back, and though he hasn’t fought MMA since the first half of 2019, he’ll be coming into the PFL lightweight division on a two-fight winning streak.
The co-main event will feature a fight between two-time PFL lightweight champion Natan Schulte and BJJ black belt Marcin Held. Schulte is one of the favorites of the division, not only due to his multiple championship titles, but also because he hasn’t lost a fight since 2017. Held, however, has been putting his BJJ to use both in the MMA world and at events like Quintet and Polaris. Over half of his 26 wins in MMA have come by way of submission, but he’ll have to pull out all the stops to hand Schulte a rare loss on his record.
The full card for the event can be seen below:
Main Card (ESPN 2)
Anthony Pettis vs. Clay Collard
Natan Schulte vs. Marcin Held
Movlid Khaybulaev vs. Jason Soares
Lance Palmer vs. Bubba Jenkins
Prelims (ESPN+)
Loik Radzhabov vs. Johnny Case
Joilton Lutterbach vs. Olivier Aubin-Mercier
Akhmed Aliev vs. Mikhail Odintsov
Jo Sungbin vs. Tyler Diamond
Brendan Loughnane vs. Sheymon Moraes
The 2021 PFL Season will begin on April 23 and can be watched on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN+.
