After winning the PFL Featherweight World Tournament, what’s next for Movlid Khaybulaev?

This past weekend we saw the conclusion of the PFL Featherweight World Tournament. In the finals of the featherweight tournament, 2021 featherweight champion Movlid Khaybulaev (24-0-1) took on 2023 featherweight champion Jesus Pinedo (25-6-1).

Entering the bout, it felt like all the momentum in the world was with Pinedo. Pinedo ran through the competition in 2023 winning the featherweight title and he had looked incredible through the first two rounds of the PFL World Tournament. Khaybulaev had struggled and many thought he didn’t even win the opening round fight of the tournament.

I personally thought that Pinedo was going to hand Khaybulaev his first professional loss. Boy was I wrong about that one. Pinedo had no answer for the wrestling of Khaybulaev and Khaybulaev was even able to hurt Pinedo on the feet at times in this fight. Pinedo had one big moment in the third when he dropped Khaybulaev, but Khaybulaev recovered quickly and took him down.

This fight was the performance of his career for Khaybulaev. In the final round, he took down Pinedo and locked in an arm triangle to get the submission and win the PFL Featherweight World Tournament.

What’s next after the PFL World Tournament?

Following his tournament win, attention should turn to the promotion’s featherweight title. At this point, there is no champion in the featherweight division. Fellow Dagestani Timur Khizriev is unbeaten as he was the 2024 featherweight champion. That said, Khizriev is still recovering from an ambush attack in Russia where he was shot in a robbery attempt.

With his situation unclear, we are going to rule him out of the first PFL featherweight title fight. With him off the table as a potential option, I think there are two fighters who you could pair with Khaybulaev for the first featherweight title fight. I think the options are Brendan Loughnane and AJ McKee.

Loughnane has already fought and lost to Khaybulaev by split decision back during the 2021 season. AJ McKee just returned to the featherweight division a few weeks ago where he won a decision over Akhmed Magomedov. If you’re asking me, I think the PFL should move to book Khaybulaev against McKee. It’s the biggest fight that can be made and I think it’s the perfect featherweight title fight.