Outside Source
Paul Hughes announced on Wednesday that a knee injury has forced him to withdraw from his main event bout against Jay-Jay Wilson. As a result, Darragh Kelly will step in and face Wilson in the new PFL Belfast headliner, the promotion confirmed. Additionally, Pedro Carvalho will step in to face Kelly’s original opponent, Sergio Cossio.
PFL Belfast takes place on April 16 at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Recent signee Rhys McKee is expected to compete in the co-main event against an opponent that will be announced next week.
Surgery on the Horizon
Hughes provided a statement on his exit in an Instagram video.
“Without going into too much detail, I picked up a knee injury in preparations and having explored every option it just isn’t possible for me to carry on training,” Hughes said. “I’ve consulted with my team alongside top professionals and unfortunately this injury cannot be pushed through anymore. I will be having surgery very soon to fix this issue. This is the game of mixed martial arts. It’s the highest highs and the lowest lows and this is one of the lowest lows. I am absolutely crushed. I think everyone knows how much this means to me to bring PFL back to Belfast. To not only showcase my skills, but to also highlight the talent that we have on this island in front of the world. From the bottom of my heart, I want to apologize to all of my supporters and everyone that I’ve let down, especially those that have spent their hard-earned money on tickets on flights to come and see me fight at home. That will never, ever sit well with me, and I will never be OK with it, and it will always eat at me that I cannot deliver.
“This is the unfortunate reality of the sport. I’m due now to have surgery very soon and that begins my next chapter, the road to recovery. I want to be back in the cage as soon as humanly possible to right this wrong. It has been a wild journey since joining the PFL and it’s going to be very hard to sit out now for some months with everything I’m working so hard to achieve, but this is now a part of the story. Every obstacle that’s ever been thrown my way has always propelled me to new heights. I’m going to get through this and I’m going to come back better than ever. This goal has not changed. I’m still going to the top of this entire sport and I’ll see you there.”
A former Cage Warriors champion, Hughes was a high-profile free agent signing for the PFL in 2024. He has gone 2-2 in the organization, with both of his losses coming to lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov. The Irish standout also owns victories over A.J. McKee and Bruno Mirando in PFL competition.
Kelly, 27, owns a 9-0 professional record — with the majority of his victories coming in either the PFL or Bellator MMA. In his most recent outing, “Moville Mauler” submitted Bakhtiyar Abdulloev in the opening stanza at a PFL Europe event in September 2025.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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