{"id":549006,"date":"2026-03-18T19:44:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/549006\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:44:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:44:15","slug":"welsh-mma-fighter-batchelor-set-for-wow-fc-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/549006\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh MMA fighter Batchelor set for WOW FC debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:BBC;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"BBC\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"195\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/9188fa80-1cd1-11ee-adeb-4290b12541e6.png\"\/><\/a>Wed, March 18, 2026 at 5:55 PM UTC<img alt=\"MMA fighter Levi Batchelor smiling and holding a Welsh flag over his shoulders\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1242\" height=\"699\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/737f8fda38c1f85444eb765baeb9126c.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Levi Batchelor will take on Georgian fighter Kakha Kortkhonjia on the WOW29 card in Valencia<\/p>\n<p>Welsh bantamweight Levi Batchelor will make his WOW [Way of the Warrior] FC debut on 11 April.<\/p>\n<p>The Pontypool native follows in the footsteps of two-time mixed martial arts world champion Brett Johns and fellow Welshman Scott Pedersen in signing with the promotion.<\/p>\n<p>He will take on Georgian fighter Kakha Kortkhonjia on the WOW29 card at the Roig Arena in Valencia, Spain.<\/p>\n<p>Kortkhonjia is undefeated with two wins and no losses in his professional career.<\/p>\n<p>Batchelor meanwhile has two wins but suffered his first career defeat against Frenchman Rayan Balbali by split decision in December at PFL Europe 4.<\/p>\n<p>Having secured his release from PFL [The Professional Fighters League], the 24-year-old will be hoping for a fresh start with WOW.<\/p>\n<p>The promotion has famous shareholders such as former UFC featherweight champion Ilia Topuria and football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wed, March 18, 2026 at 5:55 PM UTC Levi Batchelor will take on Georgian fighter Kakha Kortkhonjia on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,245410,195457,786,271598,271597,785,271599,85],"class_list":["post-549006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-batchelor","tag-brett-johns","tag-fighting","tag-kakha-kortkhonjia","tag-levi-batchelor","tag-mma","tag-scott-pedersen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}