{"id":494343,"date":"2026-02-23T15:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494343\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T15:35:07","slug":"pfl-returns-to-belfast-with-paul-hughes-in-the-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/494343\/","title":{"rendered":"PFL returns to Belfast with Paul Hughes in the main event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Paul Hughes is fighting at home again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Professional Fighters League announced on Monday that the promotion is returning to Belfast on April 16 at SSE Arena. Hughes faces Jay Jay Wilson in the main event in a pivotal lightweight matchup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Thursday fight card will be broadcast on ESPN2, and also on the ESPN app. No other bouts for the spring event in Ireland have been announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hughes makes his fifth appearance for the PFL and looks to push his promotional record back above .500. One of the company\u2019s rising stars, Hughes competed three times in 2025, including a Fight of the Year contender against Usman Nurmagomedov for the lightweight title in January 2025, losing a razor close decision. \u201cBig News\u201d bounced back with a quick finish of Bruno Miranda four months later, and fell short in the rematch with Nurmagomedov at PFL Dubai, losing via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Wilson attempts to get back on track after having his three-fight win streak halted by Archie Colgan this past October at PFL Dubai. Prior to that, Wilson picked up wins against Mads Burnell, Mansour Barnaoui, and Vladimir Tokov. All but one of Wilson\u2019s pro bouts took place under the PFL-Bellator umbrella.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Hughes is fighting at home again. The Professional Fighters League announced on Monday that the promotion is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-494343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","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\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494343","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=494343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}