Jackson, Pinedo Lead Pack of Semifinalists Atop 2025 PFL World Tournament 1

In the world of competitive sports, Jason Jackson proved Jamaica has more than just a bobsled team.

The main 2025 season of Professional Fighters League is officially underway, with semifinalists for featherweights and welterweights on the books. The evening concluded with the sole remaining seat at 170 pounds up for grabs, with former Bellator MMA champs colliding in this new single-elimination tourney. Jackson (19-5, 2-0 PFL) tangled with Andrey Koreshkov (28-6, 1-2 PFL) for the next slot on the bracket, and Jackson proved to be too much for the Russian. A combination of takedowns and varied striking from “The Ass-Kicking Machine” put Koreshkov on the defensive early, welting up Koreshkov all over his body and taking little damage on the comeback in the first round.

Midway through Round 2, still in the driver’s seat, Jackson hacked down with three illegal strikes to shred open a sizeable cut on the crown of Koreshkov’s dome. Referee Keith Peterson determined that despite strikes on the crown of the head are considered “back of the head” and prohibited, the movement of Koreshkov swaying to try to avoid damage resulted him in putting himself in harm’s way. Moments after the restart without a point taken, Jackson smoothly secured a takedown, took Koreshkov’s back and choked him all the way to sleep. The rear-naked choke forced Peterson to step in at 4:21 of the second round, punctuating a fairly violent night that wrapped with six stoppages in eight quarterfinals.

Jackson picked up his first submission win this decade by putting Koreshkov out with the rear-naked choke. Ready and rearing to face Jackson, Thad Jean sprang into the cage to both congratulate the victor, stare him down and receive one shove before PFL official Ray Sefo had to get between them.

With the featherweight field officially chopped down to four, Jesus Pinedo (24-6-1, 4-1 PFL) showed up and showed out against Hungary’s Adam Borics (19-3, 1-1 PFL). Pinedo met Borics’ trademark aggression and powerful kickboxing with firepower in his own hands. Any time Borics seemed to fare well, Pinedo would wave him on to encourage a brawl. Even the disciplined Borics could only resist the urge for so long until he waded into the melee, and the hard-swinging Pinedo connected quicker and heavier to put “The Kid” down for the proverbial count. With Borics attempting to recover, referee Andrew Glenn waved the contest off despite Borics’ protests at 3:43 of the initial period.

Primed for a rubber match with rival Gabriel Braga, “El Mudo” can rest on his laurels as the first man to stop the former Bellator title challenger with strikes.

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The penultimate welterweight match contained two fighters who were not expecting to face one another until Friday. When Magomed Umalatov failed to make weight, Joseph Luciano (9-3, 0-1 PFL) leapt at the chance to take on Logan Storley (17-3, 2-1 PFL) and make a name for himself. Try as he might, the late replacement served as little more than a tattooed takedown dummy for the lion’s share of the bout. In under 15 seconds, Storley had secured the first takedown that practically controlled the rest of Round 1. A brief bit of success on the feet for the Aussie worked against him, as he opened himself up to a clean double by the four-time Division-I All-American wrestler who nullified him the rest of the frame. The South Dakotan firmly embraced the grind for the remainder of the fight, frustrating Luciano with ground-and-pound, mat returns and suffocating control.

The victor was never an any doubt, with the sole question of whether a judge would hand down a 10-8 score. They opted against it, issuing matching 30-27 tallies to Storley, who will cruise into his semifinals encounter against a man who won earlier on the prelims.

Once again sporting the best active MMA record without a loss, Movlid Khaybulaev (22-0-1, 1 NC; 8-0-1, 1 NC PFL) returned to the PFL cage after a year and a half off to join the featherweight bracket. Standing in his way was Jeremy Kennedy (19-6, 1 NC; 2-3, 1 NC PFL), who proved to be quite the match for the bald, bearded Dagestani. The Canadian walked his man down in the early going, smashing him in the temple with balance-busting elbows that either grounded or dropped Khaybulaev to a knee on numerous occasions. “Killer” came back to embody his nicknamesake in the second stanza, hurting Kennedy with haymakers and elbows while controlling him the rest of the round with his wrestling. The third round could have gone either way, as the featherweights jockeyed for position and traded blows without a game-changing moment on either side. The result hung in the balance.

At the conclusion of the 15-minute endeavor, the judges handed down scores of 29-28 Kennedy, 29-28 Khaybulaev and a third of 29-28 in favor of Khaybulaev. By the skin of his teeth, Khaybulaev escaped to the semifinals, with a date against Tae Kyun Kim sooner than later.

Jean (9-0, 5-0 PFL) kept his spotless record intact when he defused dangerous Russian Mukhamed Berkhamov (16-2, 1 NC; 1-1 PFL) in the first round. Jean’s striking exchanges led to an opportunity to snare a guillotine choke, and although Berkhamov survived the attempt, he never got fully back into the fight. The undefeated Jean changed the trajectory of his career by slipping a punch and leveling Berkhamov with a vicious left hook, where he went on to drop down and pound out “Cherkes” with a barrage of conscious-depriving hammerfists. The end came 4:22 into Round 1, where the triumphant Jean walked off to parade around the cage clutching a Haitian flag with the American flag draped across his back.

“The Silverback” declared himself as a serious threat to the rest of the bracket, with local fans firmly in his pocket as he celebrated the biggest win of his life. He will come to blows with tonight’s winning headliner of Jackson in two months.

Frederik Dupras (8-1, 0-0 PFL) put some fear in the eyes of Brazil’s Braga (15-2, 7-2 PFL) with a tight guillotine choke, but it was not enough to spring the upset. Once Braga exploded out of the submission setup, he rained down ground-and-pound until he could turn the tables to take the submission specialist’s back. As if he wanted to send a message to not only his opponent but the remainder of the division, the 26-year-old Braga landed his first submission as a professional by hitting a neck crank on the Canadian at 4:37 of the first round.

The victorious fighter from Brazil earned a rubber match with two-time adversary Pinedo, and the two shared an intense staredown where neither man flinched despite their faces hovering within one inch of the other.

The welterweight bracket found its first semifinalist when the dust settled from Masayuki Kikuiri (11-2-1, 1-0 PFL) vs. Giannis Bachar (9-3, 0-1 PFL). The former outlasted his Greek opponent, who could not answer the stool to start the third round. Both men kept it close, going tit-for-tat in their offense. One man would try for a takedown, the other would stuff it and attempt to reverse. If Kikuiri initiated a striking exchange, Bachar did his best to conclude it. The first two rounds were tight, but whether due to a knee injury or the emptying of his energy reserves, Bachar could not continue to Round 3.

Kikiuri’s path to the title will not get any easier, as he is to face Storley in the next round. Eight of the Japanese athlete’s 11 wins have come via knockout or technical knockout, while Bachar had never lost any way other than submission.

Related » PFL 2025 World Tournament 1 Round-by-Round Scoring

Due to the slim and svelte nature of the event, all eight matches took place under tournament rules, with no showcases on the docket. The evening began with the first featherweight opening round match that pitted South Korea’s Kim (11-1, 1-0 PFL) against proud Irishman Nathan Kelly (11-4, 4-2 PFL). Kelly started the round aggressively, mashing Kim up against the wall and stomping his feet repeatedly. Kim gained space and floored Kelly with a huge right hand, and he leaps on the back of his opponent to start pursuing submissions. While a few neck cranks could not lock down in part due to the blood flowing down Kelly’s face, Kim set the hook with a rear-naked choke and slid the forearm beneath the chin. Kelly never committed to tapping out, going out on his shield instead and forcing referee Andrew Glenn to rescue him from the move.

The technical submission came at the 4:53 mark of the opening frame, giving “Ares” his first victory by sub since 2019 while becoming the first fighter this year to advance in the PFL tournament.