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Looks like Natan Schulte will have some serious competition if he hopes to 3-peat as the reigning PFL lightweight tournament winner.

Free agency did not last long for Anthony Pettis. The former WEC and UFC lightweight champion wrapped up the final fight of his UFC contract on December 19th, with a unanimous decision victory over Alex Morono. After the victory, Pettis talked about wanting to test the market to see what kind of price he could command fighting out from under the Zuffa/Endeavor banner for the first time in more than a decade.

For many fighters, that might mean waiting out the UFC’s exclusive negotiation period, or facing the prospect that White & Co. might match whatever contract any other organization could offer over the next twelve months. But, here we are just four days removed from UFC Vegas 17 and it looks like Pettis has his new deal all squared away.

ESPN’s Ariel Helwani reports that Pettis has signed to fight for the Professional Fighters League, where he will compete in the lightweight division.

While the bulk of ‘Showtime’’s MMA run has come at 155 lbs, most recently the longtime Roufusport product has been competing up at welterweight. He’s currently riding back to back wins on his way out of the Octagon, having returned from a lightweight defeat to Diego Ferreira in January to beat Donald Cerrone and Alex Morono back at 170 lbs.

Formerly the World Series of Fighting, the PFL scrapped what would have been their third season in 2020 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. However, in both their 2018 & 2019 tournaments, Brazilian lightweight Natan Schulte (20-3-1) captured PFL gold—and $1 million in prize money for each go-round.

Assuming Schulte is set to return for the promotion’s 2021 season as well, Pettis’ inclusion in the mix should make for a fascinating year. A chance for Pettis to show he’s still got the chops that made him king of the mountain, and a chance for Schulte to prove he’s truly a world class talent.

Just yesterday (Mon., Dec. 22, 2021), former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Lightweight champion, Anthony Pettis, announced that he would be parting ways with the promotion after 12 years of dedicated service in order to test free agency.

And it didn’t take long for “Showtime” to find a new home. According to ESPN’s Ariel Helwani, Pettis has inked a multi-fight deal with Professional Fighters League (PFL) to compete in the promotion’s 2021 season.

“Anthony Pettis has agreed to a new deal with PFL, per multiple sources,” wrote Helwani on Twitter. “The former UFC and WEC lightweight champion will be a part of the promotion’s 2021 season and will compete in their lightweight division, sources say.”

Sorry, Scott.

Pettis posted the news himself on Twitter, as did PFL.

Pettis ended his UFC run with two straight wins against Donald Cerrone and Alex Morono, who he defeated just last Saturday night (Dec. 19, 2020) at UFC Vegas 17 in Las Vegas, Nevada. And though “Showtime” expressed interest in a rematch against Tony Ferguson immediately after his win, it seems his heart was already set elsewhere.

Over the course of a year, PFL has really made some waves in free agency, signing the likes of Rory MacDonald, Fabricio Werdum, Claressa Shields and a slew of other free agents who will join Pettis in its core of fresh faces in 2021.

Of course, the allure of winning one of its several $1 million tournaments is too good to pass up for a lot of these former UFC fighters, who also now have the ability to make a bit more money from sponsorship deals, as well.

How do you think Pettis will do with his new promotion?

March is going to be a busy month for UFC heavyweights.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) heavyweight division has a new contender slowly blasting his way through the ranks, recently defeating former 265-pound kingpin Junior dos Santos and taking over the No. 7 spot on the official charts.

Ciryl Gane.

The Parisian power puncher improved to 7-0 with his technical knockout victory over “Cigano” at the UFC 256 pay-per-view (PPV) event earlier this month in Las Vegas, and believes the next logical opponent is heavyweight bruiser Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

“This makes sense,” Gane told Farah Hannoun of MMA Junkie. “He is not booked, so we tried to do it for January if I’m not mistaken, but with Christmas he needs time, so we’ll see. I don’t know when exactly, but I think it’s gonna be that guy.”

“Bon Gamin” expects to make his return in March.

Like Gane, Rozenstruik is coming off a second-round stoppage against Dos Santos, part of an 11-1 record that also includes finishes over Alistair Overeem and Andrei Arlovski. As of this writing, “Bigi Boy” remains without an opponent for 2021.

“There aren’t that many people above me,” Gane continued. “There are fights already booked and Rozenstruik isn’t, so I think it’s probably with this guy. But if you ask me who I want – anyone. I’m on my way, so let’s go.”

Rozenstruik first … Ngannou second?

No amount of money will sway Khabib Nurmagomedov into unretiring, according to close teammate Daniel Cormier.

Khabib Nurmagomedov may have rejected the idea of coming out of retirement multiple times, but Dana White isn’t willing to take that no for an answer. The UFC big boss is still convinced that he can get undefeated “Eagle” to change his mind.

White recently spoke to BT Sport and said this:

I think his dad wanting him to get to 30-0 is in the back of his mind. And he wants to achieve that because he knew his father wanted it. But we’ll see. He and I are gonna get together next month and talk.

He might not. Maybe he won’t fight (again). I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m a little confident that I can talk him into it.

If a fat paycheck is what the UFC plans to use to lure Khabib back in, that may not work according to close teammate and training partner Daniel Cormier. As he told UFC correspondent Laura Sanko in a recent sitdown, White will have to do a lot more than that.

“I asked Khabib once, I said, ‘How much money would it take for me to be rich in Dagestan?’ He said, ‘$5 million, and you’re rich for the rest of your life,’” Cormier said. “Khabib has much more than $5 million. So I don’t know how much the money is gonna be the thing that draws him back to the Octagon.

“Dana’s gonna have to tap into something within his spirit to try to get him to fight again because he’s one of those guys that doesn’t need as much. He makes so much money outside of the Octagon at this point, that it would have to be something that would drive him competitively to come back and fight.

“I don’t think it’s gonna be money that makes him go back to the Octagon.”

White is already moving on from the seemingly cursed Tony Ferguson matchup, so that’s one less option for Khabib. Perhaps the UFC can pull a rabbit out of their hats and make the Georges St-Pierre fight happen, but they will have to hurry before Father Time completely catches up on the 39-year-old ex-champion.