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Thad Jean overcomes late replacement Ernesto Rodriguez after Shamil Musaev withdraws to capture the PFL welterweight championship
Carefirst Arena in Washington, D.C., was the venue for Professional Fighters League‘s latest “Summer Series” fight night on Saturday, July 25.
In the main event, two of the top welterweights in the world were due to battle it out as 2025 tournament champion Thad Jean was set to fight 2024 tourney king Shamil Musaev, but the latter had complications with his weight cut and was replaced by Ernesto Rodriguez.
We were initially scheduled to an incredible fight on paper, but what we got in practice was somehow even more special as Jean and Rodriguez went to war from the bell. Jean was rattled by Rodriguez right hands multiple times in the opening frame, but gave as good as he got with some blistering kicks and a couple of guillotine attempts. The second stanza, though, was all Rodriguez as he dropped Jean with a combination and had him in bad trouble on several occasions as Jean amazingly fought through a number of rear-naked choke attempts. Jean’s conditioning heldin the end and was the difference in the third period as he ended up on top from a scramble before forcing referee Mario Yamasaki to stop the fight with ground-and-pound. With the win, Jean was crowned PFL welterweight champ.
The two fights directly preceding that were a duo of light-heavyweight clashes with possible contender implications as Rasul Magomedov took on Sullivan Cauley before former Ultimate Fighting Championship 205er Tyson Pedro locked horns with Rafael Xavier. The former was an absolute scrap for the ages as Magomedov and Cauley traded takedowns, knockdowns and cuts in a brawl of the year contender which Magomedov ended up winning on the cards. Xavier then got a first-round TKO stoppage of Pedro after a prolonged attack of calf kicks left the Australian barely able to stand. Xavier was able to overwhelm Pedro late in the stage and finish him with grounded elbows against the cage in a picture-perfect performance.
The opening main card match-up saw Eliezer Kubanza‘s coming out fighting against Chris Mixan as the DR Congo man landed some heavy strikes before a second round brabo choke put away Mixan.
On the undercard, former PFL Africa champion Nkosi Ndebele produced the standout performance. The South African left Brandon Davis bloodied and battered after a unanimous 30-26 victory following a kick-heavy domination where Ndebele almost finished Davis twice with, secondly, late ground-and-pound in the third and with an Anderson Silva-esque front kick to the face midway through the second frame.
Four-time All-American wrestler Bryce Meredith headlined the prelims against Michael Cyr in a fantastic fight which could be best described as a grappler’s delight as Meredith took home a unanimous decision win after 15 minutes of Cyr’s jiu-jitsu just falling short against the heavy wrestling and ground striking of Meredith.
A lightweight title fight headlines PFL NY: Tune on Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
There were also mixed results for debuting pros as highly-touted Chad Yard started well but was choked out by experienced 10-fight veteran Coby Bradford with a rear-naked choke in Round 2. While opening the card, D2 national champion wrestler Noah Hermosillo made a more successful professional debut against Jacob Pais as he eased his way to a decision win with a takedown inside the opening minute of each round which led to prolonged segments of ground-and-pound to claim his maiden victory.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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