Professional Fighters League 2021 Playoffs: Lightweight

Loik Radzhabov has punched his ticket to a second straight Professional Fighters League lightweight final, and the man who spoiled it for him last time won’t be there to meet him.

At PFL 7: 2021 Playoffs on Friday, Radzhabov, the 2019 lightweight runner-up, defeated Alex Martinez by unanimous decision to secure a berth in the Oct. 27 finals. In so doing, he avenged a split decision loss to Martinez in the regular season opener. In the finals, he will meet Raush Manfio, who took a unanimous decision over Clay Collard in Friday’s other lightweight semifinal.

“Tiger Paw” was the only PFL veteran to make the four-man playoff; a cutthroat regular season saw two-time champ Natan Schulte and former contender Akhmed Aliev fail to make the playoffs. PFL’s squad of Ultimate Fighting Championship-veteran free agent signings largely went down in flames as well; while Collard managed to grab the No. 2 seed, former champ Anthony Pettis infamously dropped both of this regular season fights, while Marcin Held and Olivier Aubin-Mercier missed the cut.

Ben Duffy/Sherdog.com illustration