{"id":306328,"date":"2026-05-23T21:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/306328\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T21:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T21:40:09","slug":"ex-bellator-champ-returns-in-pfl-austin-co-main-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/306328\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Bellator champ returns in PFL Austin co-main event"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nSergio Pettis suffered an upset loss to Mitchell McKee at PFL
\nChicago. | PFL MMA<\/p>\n

Sergio
\nPettis<\/a> will face another up-and-coming talent in the
\nPFL Austin<\/a> co-headliner.<\/p>\n

The former Bellator
\nMMA<\/a> bantamweight champion will square off against Lewis
\nMcGrillen-Evans<\/a> on July 18 at the Moody Center in Austin,
\nTexas. The bout was announced during the
\nPFL Brussels<\/a> broadcast on Saturday. PFL Austin is headlined by
\na middleweight title rematch between Costello
\nvan Steenis<\/a> and Johnny
\nEblen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Looking to Rebound
\n
\nPettis had a two-bout winning streak snapped in his most recent
\nouting at
\nPFL Chicago<\/a>, where he dropped a unanimous verdict to undefeated
\nnewcomer Mitchell
\nMcKee<\/a> on April 11. Prior to that, \u201cThe Phenom\u201d had earned
\nconsecutive triumphs over Magomed
\nMagomedov<\/a> and Raufeon Stotts. Pettis claimed Bellator gold with
\na victory over Juan
\nArchuleta<\/a> and defended the crown against Kyoji
\nHoriguchi<\/a> and Patricio
\nFreire<\/a> before relinquishing the strap to Patrick Mix<\/a>
\nat Bellator 301 in November 2023.<\/p>\n

McGrillen-Evans, meanwhile, has been victorious in six of his seven
\n
\nPFL<\/a> starts. His current four-bout winning streak includes a
\n2024 PFL Europe championship and a second-round submission of
\nAlan
\nPhilpott<\/a> in his last outing in May 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergio Pettis suffered an upset loss to Mitchell McKee at PFL Chicago. | PFL MMA Sergio Pettis will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[732,132,134,133,223,110990],"class_list":["post-306328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-article","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-news","tag-professional-fighters-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}