In the inaugural 2021 regular-season event of Professional Fighters League (PFL) on 23rd April, the main card saw Clay Collard mark a unanimous victory against former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis at the Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Collard (19–8), a former UFC fighter himself, made his PFL debut against his ex-colleague Pettis (24–11), who is a former lightweight champion at UFC as well as World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) and appeared in his first PFL event as well.
The bout marked Collard’s return to MMA after two years, since the 28-year-old switched to professional boxing and holds a record of 9 wins, 4 losses and 3 draws. Pettis, on the other hand, came from two back to back wins against Donald Cerrone and Alex Morono at UFC 249 and UFC Fight Night: Thompson vs. Neal respectively.
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Pettis targeted low leg kicks in the second round, but Collard delivered a brutal right hand jab that landed the 34-year-old to the canvas, and went on to deliver shots against the fence.
Clay Collard drops Pettis in the 2nd round!!!!#2021PFL1
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🌎 https://t.co/T11Ogp2ycR pic.twitter.com/nFULFBsPBT— PFL (@PFLMMA) April 24, 2021
The third and final round saw Collard catching a kick from Pettis and putting the latter on the floor, followed by leg kicks and delivering a right hook once again. Pettis, however, made a comeback halfway in the round with a staggering left kick to Collard. Pettis followed up with a second head kick but Collard was able to withstand this time, returning with leg kicks.
Leading the numbers across all three rounds, the judges marked the final score 29-27, 29-27, 29-28 in favour of Collard.
Check out the full PFL 1 results below:
Main card:
- Clay Collard defeats Anthony Pettis via unanimous decision (29-27, 29-27, 29-28)
- Marcin Held defeats Natan Schulte via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Movlid Khaibulaev defeats Lazar Stojadinovic via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Bubba Jenkins defeats Lance Palmer via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Preliminary card:
- Brendan Loughnane defeats Sheymon Moraes via KO (punch) – Round 1, 2:55
- Raush Manfio defeats Joilton Lutterbach via split decision (28-29, 29-28, 29-28)
- Akhmed Aliev defeats Mikhail Odintsov via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Chris Wade defeats Anthony Dizy via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
- Tyler Diamond defeats Jo Sung Bin via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
- Alexander Martinez defeats Loik Radzhabov via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 30-27)
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