The PFL’s 2021 year will kick off April 23 and feature among its prized offseason signings in former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis.
Pettis (24-10) will meet Clay Collard (18-8) in the main event of PFL 1, president Ray Sefo told ESPN. The battle will take place at a place still to be declared and will broadcast on ESPN2.
Pettis, 34, signed a contract with PFL late last year to compete to get the promotion’s $1 million season prize. The movement ended a nearly 10-year run in which Pettis fought exclusively in the UFC, where he held the 155-pound belt from 2013 to 2015.
Collard, 27, has one of the more interesting careers in all of combat sports, as he fought in the UFC in 2014 and 2015 but spent the previous two years boxing professionally. He had six spells in 2020, including four appearances under the Top Rank banner in Las Vegas.
Besides the major event, two-time PFL lightweight winner Natan Schulte (20-3-1) will face former Bellator MMA name challenger Marcin Held (26-7) and two-time PFL featherweight champion Lance Palmer (22-3) will satisfy a former NCAA Division I wrestling winner in Bubba Jenkins (14-4).
The complete matchups for PFL 1 on April 23 contain.