On Aug. 18, at the Hulu Theater in Madison Square Garden, the next leg of the PFL Playoffs will take shape as the heavyweight and women’s featherweight semifinals commence.
Renan Ferreira, Maurice Greene, Dennis Goltsov, and Jordan Heiderman are the last heavyweights in the PFL Playoffs. Defending champion Larissa Pacheco, Olena Kolesnyk, Amber Leibrock, and Marina Mohknatkina make up the final four of the women’s featherweight class.
Atop one of the biggest combat sports shows of the weekend (UFC 292 takes place a day later in Boston), Brazil’s Ferreira will face veteran American Greene for a shot at competing for the PFL Heavyweight Championship in November.
Here’s how you can watch the semifinal action.
- Main Card – ESPN/ESPN+ at 9:00 PM ET
- Prelims – ESPN+ at 7:00 PM ET
The winner of Ferreira-Greene will meet the winner of another main card bout from the Aug. 18 show, a heavyweight clash between Russia’s Goltsov and another American, Jordan Heiderman.
Can Greene and Heiderman lock down the first-ever all-American PFL Heavyweight Championship bout and thus assure the promotion will have its first American heavyweight champion?
The odds will be against them.
Greene landed in the semifinals as a replacement for the injured Marcelo Nunes. He comes in with losses in four of his last six fights, including a loss to reigning PFL Heavyweight champion Ante Delija.
Ferreira, Greene’s opponent, has won four of his last five fights, with his only loss coming to Delija. Ferreira is listed as a -700 favorite over Greene, according to Fight Odds.
Likewise, Goltsov, a two-time semifinalist and easily the most experienced of the four heavyweight semifinalists with 38 fights to his credit, is a -750 favorite against Heiderman. Goltsov has won four contests in a row, with his last loss coming against, you guessed it, Delija back in 2021.
With Delija out of action with an injury, 2023 might finally be Goltsov’s year. That said, Heiderman is an interesting threat. He is undefeated in non-exhibition fights, though he was knocked out in the second round of an Ultimate Fighter bout by Zac Pauga in 2022.
That bout counts as an exhibition fight and doesn’t stain his professional record.
Heiderman won his PFL debut in June over Patrick Brady after the latter suffered a knee injury in the first round. Could Heiderman pull a major upset over Goltsov? If he does, it could be a show-stealing performance.
Speaking of massive favorites and a fighter who also pulled off a huge upset, Pacheco checks both boxes. Almost everyone in New York will be surprised if Pacheco doesn’t come away victorious while remaining the odds-on favorite to repeat as PFL Women’s Featherweight champion. She knocked off Kayla Harrison in one of the biggest upsets in MMA in 2022 to win PFL gold.
Pacheco is in the midst of an eight-fight win streak with no signs of slowing down.
She faces Kolesnyk for a third time after already beating her twice. The Brazilian’s massive striking power could be too much for her opponent again on the way to a repeat as champion.
If Pacheco wins as expected, she will face the winner of the Leibrock-Mohknatkina semifinal. Pacheco has already scored a first-round KO win over Leibrock as well.
Mohknatkina is the favorite to beat Leibrock, per Fight Odds, and she may have the only real chance to thwart Pacheco’s attempt to win back-to-back PFL titles. I spoke with Pacheco in July as she prepared for her bout with Kolesnyk.
She was confident in her ability to defeat Kolesnyk for a third time. Pacheco also didn’t express a major preference in opponent for her potential title fight with Leibrock or Mohknatkina.
I’ll be in New York for the event and I will have a complete recap of the main card when it’s over on Friday night.
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