Did Not Disappoint
PFL continued its European season in Scotland on Saturday night with PFL Glasgow, and it did not disappoint. It was the promotion's first event on Scottish soil, packed with Scottish and UK talent. From start to finish the pacing was excellent, with only very short breaks between fights and an incredible night of fighting.
The night started with Gemma Auld and Weronika Pietruszka. The debutant Scot brought a large and loud following with her and didn't let them down. She defended 3 armbars in the opening minutes only to secure her position and finish the fight via some heavy ground and pound. It was an excellent debut and will leave fans desperate to see more.
Next up was another Scot, Bryan Hyslop vs Matiss Zaharous. The fight started at a frantic pace without anything substantial landing in the boxing however Mattis was getting a lot of success with kicks and knees up the middle, seemingly hurting Hyslop at one point before going on to secure a second-round submission putting Scotland at 1-1 for the night.
Following that we had a Scotland vs England bout with a hint of Italian influence with Lorenzo Parente and Stefano Catacoli in a lightweight showcase bout.with Parente walking away the victor after a first-round armbar taking Scotland to 2-1 for the night and getting the fans ready for the start of the semi-final runs.
Semi-Finals
The first of the 8 semi-finals was an all-Poland bout between Karolina Wojcik and Paulina Wisniewska. It was a good fight but ended up resulting in a comfortable decision win for Karolina, seeing her progress to the PFL finals to face off against the winner of the next bout of the night, Shanelle Dyer vs Valentina Scatizzi. Scatizzi was the first in the family to fight that night as her brother waited backstage for his own Semi-final bout later on. This is where the night began to heat up. The first round saw Shanelle control the pace and show off her entire kickboxing arsenal whilst Scatizzi struggled to get into the fight, it wasn't for the lack of trying. She walked through multiple combinations and tried to mount an offense but to no avail. She came into the fight more in the second round landing a few big shots of her own and arguably winning that round however it wasn't enough as Shanelle came back and controlled pace again in the third to secure a controversial split decision win to advance into the Flyweight final against Karolina Wojcik.
Connor Hughes followed up the English success with a victory of his own against Ignacio Capella. The fight started with some big swings and misses but ended up being a great bout. Evenly matched until the buzzer, Hughes walked away the victor seeing himself progress to the LW Europe Playoff Final. He will have had a close eye on the following bout, Jakub Kaszuba vs Daniele Scatizzi to see who his opponent in the final would be. Unfortunately for the Scatizzi family, they couldn't get a win in Glasgow as Daniele fell short in a decision loss to Jakub Kaszuba, the second Polish fighter to progress into the finals on the night.
As mentioned at the start, the pacing was excellent and despite the main card start time being scheduled for 8 pm the first fight of the main card kicked off around 10 minutes early giving the fans more to enjoy. It was another semi-final between Ibrahima Mane and Daniele Miceli. Mane coming in as the big favourite suffered a shock defeat to Miceli with a devastating first-round KO seeing himself progress into the Welterweight finals. Jack Grant followed up with a very controversial loss next against Florim Zendeli to see the Welterweight final lock in its matchup as Daniele Miceli vs Florim Zendeli.
The final set of semi-finals of the night saw the bantamweights roll into town, and as ever, did not disappoint. Julien Lopez lost via first-round submission to Alexander Lister seeing Lister progress into the final and one of PFL's greatest-ever fights was to follow.
One Of The Best Fights Ever
Lewis Mcgrillen vs Dean Garnett was a fight between friends and former teammates but if you didn't know that beforehand, you'd never have guessed. These two men spent the 2 and a bit rounds they had of fighting truly trying to take each other's heads off. The fight included 14 total knockdowns, 3 submission attempts, and incredible scrambles. It will go down as one of, if not the best fight in PFL history and one of the greatest MMA fights ever in my opinion. It was that good.
To see out the night we had 3 Scots upcoming and Mark Ewen kicked us off with another win for Scotland and his first PFL win for himself with a first-round D'arce choke over Yassin Chtatou. That set the mood for the Scottish MMA Legends to see out the night, firstly UFC Vet Rob Whiteford looking to get back in the win column vs UFC Vet Roger Huerta. It was a close fight between legends and both men had their moments with Rob doing just enough to secure the decision victory and get back on track.
Stevie Ray
Stevie Ray had announced this PFL Glasgow main event would be his retirement fight vs Lewis Long. Long started by taking down Ray and instantly realized that probably wasn't the wisest of ideas as Stevie Ray began to work and hunt submissions. He nearly got him with a guillotine and then a leg lock, but Long survived to see out the first. Early into the second Stevie Ray got Long down and went to work on his trademark 'Scottish Twister', securing it and getting the win with his second twister of his career. An incredible feat given the rarity of the submission.
After the fight, when posed the question of retirement he seemed to change his mind and decide he wanted at least a few more fights if the offer came along, the news met with a resounding cheer from the crowd to top off an incredible night for Scottish MMA, finishing the night 5-1, the only Scottish loss being Hyslop early in the card.
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