Playoff-Bound Olivier Aubin-Mercier, Sadibou Sy Shine in PFL Regular-Season Finale

The possibility of a repeat remains in play for defending Professional Fighters League lightweight champion Olivier Aubin-Mercier.

Aubin-Mercier waylaid Anthony Romero with a beautiful knee strike in the third round of their PFL 6 headliner on Friday at Overtime Elite Arena in Atlanta, where the Tristar Gym standout clinched his spot in the postseason in style. Blindsided by the fight-ending blow, Romero (12-2, 1-1 PFL) checked out 28 seconds into Round 3.

The 34-year-old Aubin-Mercier (19-5, 8-0 PFL) was calculated and efficient, and a brief brush with adversity—Romero buckled his knees with a first-round front kick—did nothing to knock him off his mark. He routinely cut off the cage against his fellow Canadian, forced him onto the back foot and scored with check right hooks and slicing straight lefts. No one saw the finish coming, least of all Romero. Aubin-Mercier backed him to the fence, caught him ducking and connected with a perfectly timed knee to the head.

Meanwhile, Xtreme Couture’s Sadibou Sy wrecked Shane Mitchell with a sensational spinning wheel kick in the third round of their welterweight co-main event. Sy (15-6-2, 9-4-2 UFC), the PFL’s defending champion at 170 pounds, sealed the deal 1:35 into Round 3 and secured another playoff berth while he was at it.

Outside of a multi-punch volley in the first round, Mitchell (13-6, 0-2 PFL) was ineffective. Sy spent two-plus rounds more or less toying with his prey, as he piled up points with a sneaky jab and brutal kicks to the body and legs. Early in Round 3, he cut loose with the wheel kick, his heel striking Mitchell directly on the jaw. His circuits scrambled, the Aussie collapsed to the canvas and covered up to avoid any further punishment. By that time, a celebratory Sy had already turned his back and raised his arms in triumph.

The 36-year-old Sy now finds himself on a six-fight winning streak.

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Elsewhere, American Top Team’s Magomed Magomedkerimov dispatched David Zawada with punches in the first round of their featured attraction at 170 pounds. Magomedkerimov (32-6, 14-1 PFL) brought it to an emphatic close 3:54 into Round 1, as he clinched the No. 1 seed in the welterweight playoffs and did so with authority.

Zawada (18-9, 0-2 PFL) enjoyed some fleeting success with low leg kicks but failed to maintain a safe distance between himself and his lethal Russian counterpart. Magomedkerimov stepped into a jarring right hand, pushed the dazed UFD Gym product to the canvas and smashed him with standing-to-ground punches until referee Bryan Miner had seen enough.

Magomedkerimov, 33, has rattled off four straight wins, three of them finishes.

Further down the card, former Eagle Fighting Championship titleholder Magomed Umalatov kept his perfect professional record intact with a unanimous decision over the previously unbeaten Nayib Lopez in their three-round welterweight attraction. Umalatov (14-0, 5-0 PFL) swept the scorecards with 30-27, 30-27 and 29-27 marks from the judges, as he qualified for the PFL playoffs at 170 pounds.

The start could not have gone worse for Lopez (16-1, 1-1 PFL). Umalatov swarmed him with multi-faceted skills and nearly finished it on more than one occasion, first with an arm-triangle choke and later with a hellacious volley of punches on the ground and on the feet. Lopez somehow survived, but he was clearly compromised for the remainder of the match. The frenetic pace cost Umalatov, as well. Visibly fatigued from all the offensive output, he took a more measured approach in the second and third rounds, where he picked his spots in the standup and executed late takedowns to sew up another victory.

Finally, Clay Collard turned away two-time Cage Warriors Fighting Championship titleholder Steven Ray with punches in the second round of their lightweight feature. Collard (23-10, 5-2 PFL) drew the curtain 1:04 into Round 2, nailing down a playoff berth at 155 pounds in the process.

Ray (25-13, 2-4 PFL) kept the Utah native guessing for much of the first round, where he executed two takedowns, advanced to the back and even threatened a Suloev stretch at one point. Those efforts failed to produce the desired results. Collard sat down the Scot with a surgical straight right early in Round 2, forced him to the butt scoot position and whipped a series of kicks into his legs. He eventually allowed Ray to stand, then tore into him with vicious body-head punches along the fence. The barrage drove him to the canvas, where Collard unleashed his ground-and-pound and prompted the stoppage.

The 30-year-old Collard has won nine of his past 12 bouts.

In other action, Carlos Leal Miranda (19-4, 5-1 PFL) cut down Dilano Taylor (10-5, 3-4 PFL) with punches 73 seconds into the second round of their featured 170-pound prelim, booking his spot in the welterweight playoffs; Natan Schulte (25-5-1, 14-2-1 PFL) took a unanimous decision from Raush Manfio (17-5, 6-2 PFL) in a three-round battle at 155 pounds, drawing 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 marks from the judges to clinch a spot in the lightweight playoffs; Bruno Miranda (16-3, 3-0 PFL) eked out a split decision—28-29, 29-28, 29-28—over Alex Martinez (10-5, 3-5 PFL) in a three-round lightweight encounter and reserved a postseason berth at 155 pounds; Shane Burgos (16-4, 1-1 PFL) was awarded a unanimous decision over Yamato Nishikawa (21-5-6, 0-2 PFL) but failed to qualify for the postseason in a three-round lightweight tussle, earning 30-26 scores from all three members of the cageside judiciary; Solomon Renfro (11-3, 1-0 PFL) wiped out Jarrah Al-Silawi (18-6, 2-3 PFL) with punches 1:44 into the second round of their welterweight clash; Brahyan Zurcher (6-0, 4-0 PFL) took out Mike Bardsley (2-1, 0-1 PFL) with punches 4:45 into the second round of their featherweight tilt; and Abdullah Al-Qahtani (6-1, 1-0 PFL) dismissed Lamar Brown (4-2, 0-1 PFL) with a rear-naked choke 1:35 into the first round of their featherweight affair.