{"id":573479,"date":"2026-03-30T04:45:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T04:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573479\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T04:45:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T04:45:21","slug":"mick-maynards-shoes-whats-next-for-joe-pyfer-after-ufc-seattle-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/573479\/","title":{"rendered":"Mick Maynard’s Shoes: What’s next for Joe Pyfer after UFC Seattle win?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Pyfer can no longer be ignored as a relevant force in the middleweight division after taking out former champ Israel Adesanya<\/a> at UFC Fight Night 271<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pyfer (16-3 MMA, 7-1 UFC) showed up in the biggest spot of his career Saturday at Climate Pledge Area in Seattle when he used his superior grappling to ground Adesanya (24-6 MMA, 13-6 UFC) and batter him for the second-round TKO<\/a>, marking his forth straight win in the octagon.<\/p>\n

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Although Pyfer beat a late-career, skidding version of Adesanya, it still represents the biggest victory on his resume thus far and elevated him several tiers in the 185-pound weight class.<\/p>\n

Pyfer failed to capitalize on the momentum of the moment and make a post-fight callout, so it’s hard to gauge where he feel he fits in this division, which will next see champion Khamzat Chimaev<\/a> defend against Sean Strickland<\/a> at UFC 328 on May 9.<\/p>\n

He’s not yet in the conversation to get the winner of that fight, but another main event win and Pyfer could be right there. A showdown with Caio Borralho (18-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC), who is coming off a decision victory<\/a> over Reinier de Ridder at UFC 326 this month, has the makings of a title eliminator of sorts, and that feels like an appropriate booking for both coming off this performance.<\/p>\n

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Other available name toward the upper tier of the weight class include former champion Dricus Du Plessis<\/a> (23-3 MMA, 9-1 UFC), the hard-hitting Gregory Rodrigues (19-6 MMA, 10-3 UFC) or, if the promotion wants to go crazy, top contender Nassourdine Imavov (17-4 MMA, 9-2 UFC).<\/p>\n

Any of those would represent another quality potential win for Pyfer, and one he could argue would merit him his first chance at UFC gold.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: UFC Seattle matchmaker: Who’s next for Joe Pyfer after win?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Pyfer can no longer be ignored as a relevant force in the middleweight division after taking out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,54075,217779,785,242826,43022,85,44865],"class_list":["post-573479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-israel-adesanya","tag-joe-pyfer","tag-mma","tag-pyfer","tag-sean-strickland","tag-sports","tag-ufc-fight-night"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573479","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=573479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}