Kayla Harrison was not the big story coming into Friday’s action at PFL 6 — a night when both a two-season PFL champion in Lance Palmer and a star signee in Anthony Pettis had their backs against the wall in the final push for the playoffs, and fell short.
Harrison, the defending PFL women’s lightweight champion, remained unbeaten with a dominant first-round finish of Cindy Dandois to lock down her spot in the PFL playoffs.
“I like to keep them guessing, keep working on stuff, keep improving, little by little,” said Harrison, a 2012 and 2016 Olympic judo gold medalist.
Harrison, who is 30 years old and fights out of American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida, improved to 10-0 and earned the No.
Pettis’ second PFL fight was much closer than his one-sided loss to Clay Collard back in April, but Pettis dropped to 0-2 and failed to qualify for the playoffs after losing to Manfio.
Over the course of the 2018 and 2019 PFL seasons, Palmer went 10-0 and won the featherweight championship both years.
Palmer needed a finish within the first two rounds in order to advance, and he was in the cage with an undefeated fighter.
The 30-year-old from Russia spent considerable time controlling Palmer with his wrestling, and he landed a few good punches from distance.
Goltsov, a 31-year-old from Russia, beat down and wore down Sayles, who was in the running for a playoff spot himself.
Sayles, who is 40, is in the military and stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia.
The 32-year-old Brazilian didn’t get the stoppage immediately, despite unloading on DeReese in the opening minute.
Pacheco opted to take the fight and a chance to earn a few extra points for seeding, but early on she took some shots during aggressive exchanges, particularly during a flurry late in Round 1, in which Kolesnyk landed a couple of punches to the head and moved towards Pacheco in pursuit.
Pacheco has eyes on reigning champion Kayla Harrison, who was scheduled to fight in the PFL 6 headliner with a chance at No.
The 30-year-old from Croatia had Cole in trouble a couple of times early, and he had to deal with a couple of reversals of position.
Cole did not budge from his defensive shell, so the ref jumped in at 4:39 to wave off the bout.
Fabian took her time early in her fight against Pajic, calmly piecing her up for a good nine minutes.
Then Fabian, a 31-year-old New Zealander, landed a right kick to the head to wobble Pajic, and she followed with a straight left hand that dropped Pajic.
Originally, it was a TKO by Ferreira, but Werdum claimed that Ferreira had tapped out, and the New Jersey athletic commission overturned the result.
Seumanutafa, a 31-year-old Samoan who fights out of San Francisco, was making his season debut.
Early on, she was throwing her punches one at a time, and Young was slipping many of them and returning counter shots.
But she picked up the pace with her strikes, and also started utilizing her judo, and that turned a close fight her way.
The victory gave Morais 3 points in the standings, and the 35-year-old Young came in with 3 points as well.
Jones was making his PFL debut kicking off the final regular-season card, and with only one fight to accumulate points to qualify for the playoffs, he needed to make a bold statement and do it quickly if he was going to have any chance of continuing his 2021 campaign.
The 33-year-old from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was in with an opponent who had 10 submissions, but Jones showed no reluctance to taking the fight to the canvas and keeping it there.