‘From UFC’ Cho Seong-bin, before returning to PFL… Opponent is ‘World Wrestling Champ’

Cho Seong-bin (31) from the UFC prepares for the return match of the Professional Fighters League, the American mixed martial arts competition.

At the Overtime Elite Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the 2023 PFL Light Heavyweight (-93kg) and Featherweight (-66kg) regular league round 2 will be held on June 9 (Korean time). If you finish in the top 4 in the first round and combined results, you will be eligible to participate in the postseason with a prize of 1 million dollars (approximately 1.3 billion won).

Cho Seong-bin will have a featherweight away match against Bubba Jenkins (35, USA), the gold medalist at the 2007 International Wrestling Federation World Youth Championship Freestyle -66kg. The PFL match between the two will be broadcast on ESPN+ in the US and IB SPORTS in Korea.

The PFL is considered one of the best American organizations after the UFC since its 2012-2017 World Series of Fighting days. It operates a mixed martial arts competition as a major sport in which the champion is determined by ‘league + playoff’.

Last month, Cho Seong-bin was scheduled to face former UFC fighter Jesús Pinedo (27, Peru) in the first round of the regular league at the Virgin Hotel Theater in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. However, a head injury in his PFL debut in the 2021 season became a problem belatedly and he was not allowed to participate.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission in the U.S. requested diagnostic data from medical institutions at the time, saying that a full recovery could only be judged by comparing his condition immediately after his head injury. However, the remaining time was too short to find the records of foreign patients, whose first and last treatment was two years ago, with less than a day left before the game 토토사이트.

The two fighters were scheduled to fight in the PFL featherweight opening match last year, but Seong-bin Cho was out for the season due to an injury, so the match with Jenkins was canceled. It means that they are opponents who have analyzed each other long ago.

In 2011, Jenkins won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 -71kg tournament as a member of the wrestling team at Arizona State University and turned to mixed martial arts. He moved down from lightweight (-70kg) to featherweight in 2014.

In 2018-2019, he was the Brave (Bahrain) featherweight champion. In the PFL, which advanced in 2021, it advanced to the semifinals of the playoffs for the second consecutive time and played an active part as the runner-up in the 2022 season.

Cho Seong-bin became the featherweight champion of three Japanese mixed martial arts events, △2014 A-Toys Challenge Fight △2015 Wardog Cage Fight △2023 February GLADIATOR. He is also a featherweight in his career, including Korea TFC interim champion in 2018 and UFC debut in 2019.

He went through twists and turns and ended up playing his 2nd PFL match in 777 days (2 years 1 month 17 days). If he defeats Jenkins, he will more than make up for the disappointment of losing in his debut match with former UFC fighter Tyler Diamond (32, USA).