Yoel Romero defeats Thiago Santos in lackluster affair at PFL vs Bellator

We’ve got a big day of fights coming to us today, February 24, 2023, where PFL vs Bellator came to us live from the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, just before The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to us for UFC Mexico City later in the evening.

Headlining PFL vs Bellator is a heavyweight affair between 2023 PFL heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira (12-3, 3 NC) and Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader (31-7, 1 NC).

Co-headlining the bout is a middleweight showdown between 2023 PFL light-heavyweight champion Impa Kasanganay (15-3) and Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen (14-0).

Our second bout going down on the main card tonight came at 205 lbs between former UFC light-heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos (22-11, 1 NC) and former UFC middleweight title challenger Yoel Romero (15-7).

Santos, the man many believed gave Jon Jones his toughest test to date, had gone just 1-4 (1 NC) since that fight, though the defeats come to Glover Teixeira (rear naked choke), Aleksandar Rakic (UD), Magomed Ankalaev (UD), and Jamahal Hill (TKO), two former champions and three talents that’re still ranked in the top five today, the lone victory coming over no. 7 ranked Johnny Walker (UD).

Romero on the other hand had gone 2-2 since joining Bellator’s roster, losing to Phil Davis (SD) in his promotional debut, before defeating Alex Polizzi (TKO) and Melvin Manhoef (KO), and then losing his most recent bout to Vadim Nemkov (UD) in their light-heavyweight title fight.

Continue reading to see how our preliminary main event went down:

Official Result: Yoel Romero def. Thiago Santos via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)

Romero controls the center of the cage throughout the opening round, though not much offense is given up by either. Santos threw some kicks, most of which he missed, and Romero threw a punch combination that he missed.

Round two was quite similar, not much going on aside from Romero landing a couple hard leg kicks in the final minute of the middle stretch.

Santos came out more aggressive in round three, though Romero continued to control the fight with his leg kicks and heavy combinations of his own, most of which however missed the mark.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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