In the world of competitive sports, Jason
Jackson proved Jamaica has more than just a bobsled team.
The main 2025 season of Professional Fighters League is officially
underway, with semifinalists for featherweights and welterweights
on the books. The evening concluded with the sole remaining seat at
170 pounds up for grabs, with former Bellator MMA champs colliding in this new
single-elimination tourney. Jackson (19-5, 2-0 PFL) tangled with
Andrey
Koreshkov (28-6, 1-2 PFL) for the next slot on the bracket, and
Jackson proved to be too much for the Russian. A combination of
takedowns and varied striking from “The Ass-Kicking Machine” put
Koreshkov on the defensive early, welting up Koreshkov all over his
body and taking little damage on the comeback in the first
round.
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Midway through Round 2, still in the driver’s seat, Jackson hacked
down with three illegal strikes to shred open a sizeable cut on the
crown of Koreshkov’s dome. Referee Keith Peterson determined that
despite strikes on the crown of the head are considered “back of
the head” and prohibited, the movement of Koreshkov swaying to try
to avoid damage resulted him in putting himself in harm’s way.
Moments after the restart without a point taken,
Jackson smoothly secured a takedown, took Koreshkov’s back and
choked him all the way to sleep. The rear-naked choke
forced Peterson to step in at 4:21 of the second round, punctuating
a fairly violent night that wrapped with six stoppages in eight
quarterfinals.
Jackson picked up his first submission win this decade by putting
Koreshkov out with the rear-naked choke. Ready and rearing to face
Jackson, Thad Jean
sprang into the cage to both congratulate the victor, stare him
down and receive one shove before PFL official Ray Sefo had to
get between them.
With the featherweight field officially chopped down to four,
Jesus
Pinedo (24-6-1, 4-1 PFL) showed up and showed out against
Hungary’s Adam Borics
(19-3, 1-1 PFL). Pinedo met Borics’ trademark aggression and
powerful kickboxing with firepower in his own hands. Any time
Borics seemed to fare well, Pinedo would wave him on to encourage a
brawl.
Even the disciplined Borics could only resist the urge for so long
until he waded into the melee, and the hard-swinging Pinedo
connected quicker and heavier to put “The Kid” down for the
proverbial count. With Borics attempting to recover,
referee Andrew Glenn waved the contest off despite Borics’ protests
at 3:43 of the initial period.
Primed for a rubber match with rival Gabriel
Braga, “El Mudo” can rest on his laurels as the first man to
stop the former Bellator title challenger with strikes.
The penultimate welterweight match contained two fighters who were
not expecting to face one another until Friday. When Magomed
Umalatov failed to make weight, Joseph
Luciano (9-3, 0-1 PFL) leapt at the chance to take on Logan
Storley (17-3, 2-1 PFL) and make a name for himself. Try as he
might, the late replacement served as little more than a tattooed
takedown dummy for the lion’s share of the bout. In under 15
seconds, Storley had secured the first takedown that practically
controlled the rest of Round 1. A brief bit of success on the feet
for the Aussie worked against him, as he opened himself up to a
clean double by the four-time Division-I All-American wrestler who
nullified him the rest of the frame. The South Dakotan firmly
embraced the grind for the remainder of the fight, frustrating
Luciano with ground-and-pound, mat returns and suffocating
control.
The victor was never an any doubt, with the sole question of
whether a judge would hand down a 10-8 score. They opted against
it, issuing matching 30-27 tallies to Storley, who will cruise into
his semifinals encounter against a man who won earlier on the
prelims.
Once again sporting the best active MMA record without a loss,
Movlid
Khaybulaev (22-0-1, 1 NC; 8-0-1, 1 NC PFL) returned to the PFL
cage after a year and a half off to join the featherweight bracket.
Standing in his way was Jeremy
Kennedy (19-6, 1 NC; 2-3, 1 NC PFL), who proved to be quite the
match for the bald, bearded Dagestani. The Canadian walked his man
down in the early going, smashing him in the temple with
balance-busting elbows that either grounded or dropped Khaybulaev
to a knee on numerous occasions. “Killer” came back to embody his
nicknamesake in the second stanza, hurting Kennedy with haymakers
and elbows while controlling him the rest of the round with his
wrestling. The third round could have gone either way, as the
featherweights jockeyed for position and traded blows without a
game-changing moment on either side. The result hung in the
balance.
At the conclusion of the 15-minute endeavor, the judges handed down
scores of 29-28 Kennedy, 29-28 Khaybulaev and a third of 29-28 in
favor of Khaybulaev. By the skin of his teeth, Khaybulaev escaped
to the semifinals, with a date against Tae Kyun
Kim sooner than later.
Jean (9-0, 5-0 PFL) kept his spotless record intact when he defused
dangerous Russian Mukhamed
Berkhamov (16-2, 1 NC; 1-1 PFL) in the first round. Jean’s
striking exchanges led to an opportunity to snare a guillotine
choke, and although Berkhamov survived the attempt, he never got
fully back into the fight.
The undefeated Jean changed the trajectory of his career by
slipping a punch and leveling Berkhamov with a vicious left hook,
where he went on to drop down and pound out “Cherkes” with a
barrage of conscious-depriving hammerfists. The end
came 4:22 into Round 1, where the triumphant Jean walked off to
parade around the cage clutching a Haitian flag with the American
flag draped across his back.
“The Silverback” declared himself as a serious threat to the rest
of the bracket, with local fans firmly in his pocket as he
celebrated the biggest win of his life. He will come to blows with
tonight’s winning headliner of Jackson in two months.
Frederik
Dupras (8-1, 0-0 PFL) put some fear in the eyes of Brazil’s
Braga (15-2, 7-2 PFL) with a tight guillotine choke, but it was not
enough to spring the upset. Once Braga exploded out of the
submission setup, he rained down ground-and-pound until he could
turn the tables to take the submission specialist’s back. As if he
wanted to send a message to not only his opponent but the remainder
of the division,
the 26-year-old Braga landed his first submission as a professional
by hitting a neck crank on the Canadian at 4:37 of the first
round.
The victorious fighter from Brazil earned a rubber match with
two-time adversary Pinedo, and the two shared an intense staredown
where neither man flinched despite their faces hovering within one
inch of the other.
The welterweight bracket found its first semifinalist when the dust
settled from Masayuki
Kikuiri (11-2-1, 1-0 PFL) vs. Giannis
Bachar (9-3, 0-1 PFL). The former outlasted his Greek opponent,
who could not answer the stool to start the third round. Both men
kept it close, going tit-for-tat in their offense. One man would
try for a takedown, the other would stuff it and attempt to
reverse. If Kikuiri initiated a striking exchange, Bachar did his
best to conclude it. The first two rounds were tight, but whether
due to a knee injury or the emptying of his energy reserves, Bachar
could not continue to Round 3.
Kikiuri’s path to the title will not get any easier, as he is to
face Storley in the next round. Eight of the Japanese athlete’s 11
wins have come via knockout or technical knockout, while Bachar had
never lost any way other than submission.
Due to the slim and svelte nature of the event, all eight matches
took place under tournament rules, with no showcases on the docket.
The evening began with the first featherweight opening round match
that pitted South Korea’s Kim (11-1, 1-0 PFL) against proud
Irishman Nathan
Kelly (11-4, 4-2 PFL). Kelly started the round aggressively,
mashing Kim up against the wall and stomping his feet repeatedly.
Kim gained space and floored Kelly with a huge right hand, and he
leaps on the back of his opponent to start pursuing submissions.
While a few neck cranks could not lock down in part due to the
blood flowing down Kelly’s face, Kim set the hook with a rear-naked
choke and slid the forearm beneath the chin.
Kelly never committed to tapping out, going out on his shield
instead and forcing referee Andrew Glenn to rescue him from the
move.
The technical submission came at the 4:53 mark of the opening
frame, giving “Ares” his first victory by sub since 2019 while
becoming the first fighter this year to advance in the PFL
tournament.