Larissa Pacheco stuns Kayla Harrison to win PFL light-weight title

Kayla Harrison, the two-time defending PFL ladies’s light-weight champion and the promotion’s most dominant fighter, is undefeated no extra. Larissa Pacheco, who twice earlier than had confronted Harrison and had misplaced each instances, obtained a surprising victory in her third crack at Harrison on Friday evening in New York.

The combat was one in all six weight division PFL season championship finals contested inside Hulu Theater at Madison Sq. Backyard.

Harrison (15-1), a two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, got here in as an 8-1 betting favourite. She and the PFL have been already planning for subsequent yr, eradicating her from regular-season competitors in an effort to e-book her in “superfights,” presumably with a step up in competitors. Pacheco may need spoiled these plans.

The combat began effectively for Harrison, who scored an early takedown and threatened a submission for a lot of the primary spherical. However Pacheco (19-4) withstood these troublesome 5 minutes and fought again within the second spherical, utilizing her highly effective stand-up expertise to land heavy strikes and using sturdy takedown protection to show the tide.

The combat seemed to be tied going into the fifth spherical, and Pacheco was the brisker fighter at that time. She landed some exhausting punches on Harrison, who finally landed a takedown however couldn’t capitalize.

All three judges scored the bout 48-47 in favor of Pacheco. Earlier than this bout, Harrison had not misplaced even a single spherical in her profession. Harrison is No. 8 within the ESPN pound-for-pound ladies’s prime 10, the one PFL fighter in both these rankings or the divisional ones.

When Pacheco was awarded the championship belt and an outsized reproduction of a $1 million verify, she credited her opponent for taking part in a task in getting her to the place she now stands in her profession.

“Similar to Kayla mentioned earlier than: I’ve at all times made her a greater competitor,” Pacheco mentioned by way of an interpreter. “Nicely, she’s at all times made me a greater competitor. She drove me to this second.”