Aaron Pico vs. Jeremy Kennedy, Several Additional Matchups Added to Bellator 277

Bellator MMA is stacking the deck for its return to San Jose, Calif., in April.

Per a report on Thursday by Marcel Dorff, and a subsequent confirmation from one of the participants on Instagram, Aaron Pico (9-3) will be setting foot in the Bellator cage on April 15 against Jeremy Kennedy (17-3, 1 NC). The featherweights will toe the line inside the SAP Center in the promotion’s adopted hometown. Additional, the organization released a few more fights on the preliminary lineup, including a middleweight tilt, a flyweight encounter and a bantamweight scrap.

Pico finds himself on a five-fight win streak since falling short to Henry Corrales and Adam Borics in 2019. A trio of finishes in 2020, an anaconda choke of Aiden Lee in June 2021 and a three-round decision over Justin Gonzales in November have led Pico to the No. 4 spot on Bellator’s rankings list. Of note, the judges’ verdict over Gonzales marked the first time the Jackson-Wink MMA product had ever gone the distance, win or lose, as a pro. The Californian will enter this fight with a high 89% stoppage rate, with all 12 of his career outings taking place in the Bellator cage.

Ultimate Fighting Championship and Professional Fighters League vet Kennedy has competed three times under the Bellator banner since joining the league in 2020. Decisions over Matt Bessette and Emmanuel Sanchez bookend a unanimous decision defeat to Borics in April 2021. Throughout a career that began in 2013 -- four years before Pico set foot in a cage for the first time -- Kennedy has defeated the likes of Luis Rafael Laurentino, Kyle Bochniak and Steven Siler over the years.

The other three matchups added to this card today are the following: Theo Haig (0-0) vs. Alan Benson (1-2) at 185 pounds, flyweights Edwin De Los Dantos (1-0) and Alberto Martinez Mendez (0-1) battling it out, and finally, Robert Seronio III (1-0) facing Calob Ramirez (1-1) in a bantamweight clash.

Bellator 277 will go down at the SAP Center in San Jose, Calif., on April 15. Two title fights buoy the event, with the night concluding with a featherweight championship rematch between the unbeaten A.J. McKee and ex-champ Patricio Freire. The co-headliner will bring Vadim Nemkov, in search of his third title defense and a $1 million check as the light heavyweight tournament victor, against ex-UFC standout Corey Anderson. The main card will also see Timothy Johnson run it back with Tyrell Fortune in a fight that first played out at the beginning of 2020.