The undefeated 23-year-old featherweight prospect will look to improve to 5-0 when he squares off with Daniel Boehle as part of the PFL 7 undercard on Aug. 2 at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. Pergande debuted on the PFL Challenger Series in 2022, earned a Professional Fighters League contract and quickly established himself as one of the company’s more promising homegrown talents. He last fought on Aug. 23, 2023—a minor injury kept him on the sidelines longer than expected—at PFL 9, where he laid claim to a three-round unanimous decision from Shawn Stefanelli. Pergande still sees plenty of room for improvement.
“I am a very self-critical person,” Pergande told The AllStar podcast. “I do have high expectations for myself. I love fighting. I love to fight. That’s just kind of my thing.”
Boehle, 30, stands as his next test. The Knoxville Martial Arts Academy product has won four of his first six bouts as a pro but finds himself on the rebound following a second-round technical knockout loss to Ilyaz Mamadaliyev under the Ohio Combat League banner in March.
“I know he’s going to be pretty grapple-heavy, but I really don’t think he has what it takes to be in there with me skill-wise,” Pergande said. “There’s just no way that he’s going to be able to keep up [with] my pace [and] my intensity. I hope he gives me a great fight. Other than that, I’m just going to go out there and do my thing.”
Pergande made the decision not long ago to step out of his comfort zone in his native Tennessee, pack his bags and head south to Deerfield Beach, Florida, where he now operates out of the powerhouse Kill Cliff Fight Club camp fronted by Henri Hooft and Greg Jones. His regular training partners include former Tachi Palace Fights and Resurrection Fighting Alliance titleholder Christos Giagos—a mainstay on the Ultimate Fighting Championship lightweight roster since 2018.
“I’m very happy I made the move two years ago,” Pergande said. “[There are] just so [many] different styles of guys that you can learn from. You’re going to go one sparring round with a guy that’s amazing at striking and that’s going to be hard to keep up with. Another guy is going to be a little quicker. Another guy is going to be really great at wrestling. Another one is going to be great at jiu-jitsu. Another one has top control. It’s just like all these different looks that you have to adjust to.
“It’s not like they’re just in there beating the hell out of you and then just leaving you alone,” he added. “No, we all learn from each other. We’re just feeding information from one to another. That’s how we grow as a team, and that’s how we grow as athletes.”
Pergande looks forward to the challenge of adapting as the sport changes around him.
“I feel like by the time I’m going to start hitting my peak we are going to start seeing those younger, newer generations coming up, and I feel like there’s going to be a lot of exciting matchups in the future, for me and for MMA,” he said. “All these kids growing up like me, we started off boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu, just everything. We can mix it together, we can scramble, we can strike. The sport is evolving so much, and I’m just trying to keep up and keep growing.”