Sullivan Cauley was the underdog going into his PFL light heavyweight tournament semifinal clash with Phil Davis in June and won the match to keep his title hopes alive. He will face one-time PFL champion Antonio Carlos Junior Thursday night in Hollywood, Fla., and the Brazilian won\u2019t overlook him.<\/p>\n
\u201cCara de Sapato\u201d beat Tom Lawlor, Emiliano Sordi and Marthin Hamlet to capture the 2021 PFL title, with the final taking place on the same state he returns to this week for his second belt. Junior sees the 2025 roster being tougher than ever, especially with Cauley knocking out Alex Polizzi, the only man to hand Junior a loss in 10 PFL appearances, in his quarterfinal bout.<\/p>\n
Back in 2021, quick finishes during the \u201cregular season\u201d counted when determining drafting semifinalists. PFL\u2019s new format in 2025 is shifted towards a more traditional tournament style, and Junior said it made it less confusing but tougher because there\u2019s no room for errors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no chance I\u2019ll underestimate him or anyone inside that cage,\u201d Junior told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe\u2019s showed all his potential, talent and physical atributes, tactics and technique. I\u2019m staying alert against him, to be quite honest. He has heavy hands, so you can\u2019t make mistakes. Phil Davis was quite known for his history, he was in the UFC and was champion in Bellator, and I thought all that experience would count. It was a very close fight, but it was just as I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brazilian veteran, a The Ultimate Fighter as a heavyweight with more than a dozen appearances under the UFC banner, sees the path to victory in mixing the martial arts rather than focusing on using his decorated grappling.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a bit of everything,\u201d Junior said of Cauley. \u201cHe has a good background in wrestling but has focused on striking after that. Even though his only loss was via submission, a rear-naked choke \u2014 my specialty, even \u2014, I know for a fact he\u2019s coming prepared for that. He\u2019s experienced in all areas of the fight so we have to mix everything well to get out with a great victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think no one wants to go to the ground \u2014 it\u2019s hard to find someone that wants to go to the ground with me because they know it\u2019s my best weapon,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut I\u2019ve shown I can mix everything quite well. My last fight was against a striker, for example, and I managed to impose my striking because I was mixing everything well with my takedowns, shots, feints and boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior trains with experienced heavyweights and light heavyweights in American Top Team, not far from PFL 10 venue Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, and looks back at his recent trips to Thailand and Brazil for specific muay Thai and boxing training as key to a possible finish on the feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t had a knockout since TUF days,\u201d said Junior with a laugh. His last knockouts came during the reality show in 2014, including a 12-second finish. \u201cThat would be awesome, very special, but we\u2019re focused on winning. No matter how it comes, we\u2019re working for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sullivan Cauley was the underdog going into his PFL light heavyweight tournament semifinal clash with Phil Davis in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,5963,7613,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-85561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85561","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=85561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}