After spending much of his early development in Cage Fury Fighting Championships, Kevin Pease received his most significant opportunity to date when the Professional Fighters League called and offered him a spot on one of its undercards. The 26-year-old Kill Cliff Fight Club welterweight jumped at the chance.

Pease faced the undefeated Nicholas Meck in a PFL 7 prelim on Aug. 2 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was tested early but managed to weather the proverbial storm on his way to a unanimous decision, pushing his record to 6-0 with one no contest. Pease was grateful for the opportunity. He fights to support his family and felt he deserved his long-awaited break. The experience was confirmation that years of hard work was worth it.

“I’ve got an ever-growing family right now, a wife and people to take care of, so getting that pay boost I felt I deserved and to get validated in that way, it was awesome,” Pease said. “The opportunity to perform on such a well-known platform like the PFL and in their most stacked division, in my opinion … it was just awesome to step up to that level and rise to the occasion.”

The fight in Nashville was a short trip for Pease, who resides a little more than three hours away in Memphis—a place he feels the MMA world has overlooked.

“It’s always a dream come true to fight in your home state and perform in front of your home fans and local fans,” he said. “I had a lot of family from the South come out and support me. Memphis has always had a hotbed of athletes that I felt has always gone underappreciated. Everybody can’t play football from here, everybody can’t go to the NBA from here, but a lot of those athletes transfer over to fighting.

“Everybody from Memphis has that grit, that determination, just that dog built into them,” Pease added. “It was awesome to share the card with the guy who got me into MMA, Jaleel Willis, who has been a staple of Memphis MMA for years now.”

Now looking to move forward after making his major-promotion debut, Pease points at multiple avenues to which he remains open, including a return to the PFL.

“I have an option with the PFL, so we have a time period where they can choose to bring me back if they like the product they got last time I competed,” he said. “If they choose to let me go, I have no doubt that the next fight will be big, no matter where it’s at, whether it’s the UFC, [Dana White’s] Contender Series or another regional promotion. I’m just looking to stay active and stay busy, keep getting that experience and keep leveling up like I do each time I get in the cage.”