PFL Cape Town Main Card Preview

The PFL has their first African card this Saturday as they head to Cape Town, South Africa. They are bringing a really strong card with them as the event will feature a middleweight title fight between Johnny Eblen and Costello Van Steenis as well as a flyweight showcase featuring the biggest star in the promotion, Dakota Ditcheva.

That said, the rest of the main card is really solid. Kicking things off on the main card is a matchup between last year’s PFL heavyweight champion Denis Goltsov (36-8) and former Bellator light heavyweight champion Corey Anderson (18-6). Anderson had been begging for a fight and now he gets a big one.

Anderson moves up to heavyweight after winning the vacant Bellator title in March 2024. Bellator is obviously no more and Anderson has decided to move up and he’s going right to last year’s champion. Denis Goltsov is a very impressive 9-1 in his last ten fights. His lone loss was in the 2023 heavyweight finals where he was stopped by Renan Ferreira. Last year, he went 4-0 with four stoppages on his way to becoming the 2024 heavyweight champion.

PFL Cape Town

The next matchup on the card will be a lightweight showcase between Artur Zaynukov (16-4) and Takeshi Izumi (6-3). Zaynukov enters the bout having won five fights in a row including his PFL debut last October against Dedrek Sanders. Izumi will be making his promotional debut after spending his entire professional career in Japan. His last fight was back in March against Spike Carlyle in RIZIN where he won a unanimous decision.

The next featured matchup will feature the featherweight return of AJ McKee (22-2). The former Bellator featherweight champion is returning to the weight class where he became a star as he takes on Akhmed Magomedov (11-1). McKee rose to stardom in Bellator where he made his professional debut back in 2015.

McKee won his first 18 fights which included a first round finish over Patricio Pitbull to become the featherweight champion. After losing the rematch to Pitbull by decision, McKee moved to lightweight. At 155, McKee won his first four fights before falling short to Paul Hughes last October by split decision. Following that loss, he returns to featherweight at PFL Cape Town.

He will be taking on Akhmed Magomedov. Magomedov suffered his first professional loss back in 2023 against Henry Corrales in Bellator. After nearly two years away, he returned back in January where he submitted Nathan Kelly in the second round. That submission got him this fight against AJ McKee.