Alfie Davis is confident that British lightweights will claim top MMA championships in the coming weeks and Arsenal will complete a perfect year by clinching the Premiere League trophy.<\/p>\n
Davis challenges Usman Nurmagomedov for the PFL belt on Feb. 7 after winning a 2025 lightweight season tournament, and that\u2019s two weeks after Paddy Pimblett takes on Justin Gaethje for the interim 155-pound gold at UFC 324 in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
On the football side of things, Arsenal currently tops the Champions League and leads the Premiere League with a 4-point edge over Manchester City. A victory would mark Arsenal\u2019s first Premiere League title since 2004. The club also defeated Chelsea 3-2 in the first leg of the English Football League Cup semifinal this past week.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great to see,\u201d Davis said of Arsenal\u2019s 2025-26 season. \u201cThere\u2019s been seasons where we\u2019re just so close, but it seems like, especially the points dropping off the other one, it seems like we\u2019re going to do it this year. I don\u2019t want to jinx myself, but we\u2019re nearly there.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Pimblett versus Gaethje on Jan. 24, Davis told MMA Fighting \u201cI think he will\u201d win the UFC lightweight title.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good time to be British, buddy,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n
Asked who has the most difficult task of the three, Davis sees his own mountain as the highest one to climb.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Arsenal are pretty much there,\u201d Davis said. \u201cPaddy has a tough job in Gaethje but I think he\u2019s the favorite, so you could argue that it\u2019s me. I mean, I\u2019m the heaviest underdog out of everyone. If the odds were there I would say I\u2019m the heaviest underdog to beat Usman out of Paddy beating Gaethje and for Arsenal to win the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davis went 3-0 in 2025 to win the PFL lightweight season, defeating Clay Collard, Brent Primus, and Gadzhi Rabadanov to set up the fight with the unbeaten Nurmagomedov. The Russian hasn\u2019t lost in 21 bouts dating back to 2017, but Davis sees a path to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you have to put on him,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way of outpointing him, unfortunately. He\u2019s a smart fighter, he\u2019s very clever, he\u2019s very good at nicking rounds. I thought that Paul Hughes won the first fight. It was very close though. The second fight he came back and was just stealing the rounds so I can\u2019t let him steal the rounds. I need to put on him. I need to damage him. I\u2019m going to go in there and make it a firefight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alfie Davis is confident that British lightweights will claim top MMA championships in the coming weeks and Arsenal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":["post-431175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}