{"id":39518,"date":"2026-07-25T23:57:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:57:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherdog.com\/news\/news\/Thad-Jean-survives-war-with-Ernesto-Rodriguez-to-win-PFL-welterweight-title-202070"},"modified":"2026-07-25T23:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T23:57:12","slug":"thad-jean-survives-war-with-ernesto-rodriguez-to-win-pfl-welterweight-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/thad-jean-survives-war-with-ernesto-rodriguez-to-win-pfl-welterweight-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Thad Jean survives war with Ernesto Rodriguez to win PFL welterweight title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n
\n

THAD JEAN GAVE 110% \ud83d\udd0b<\/p>\n

WHAT A BATTLE#PFLDC<\/a>
\n| Main Card LIVE NOW on ESPN pic.twitter.com\/iTAj3uzkjn<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 PFL (@PFLMMA)
\nJuly 26, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Thad Jean overcomes late replacement Ernesto Rodriguez after
\nShamil Musaev withdraws to capture the PFL welterweight
\nchampionship<\/h2>\n

Carefirst Arena in Washington, D.C., was the venue for
\nProfessional Fighters League<\/a>‘s latest \u201cSummer Series\u201d fight
\nnight on Saturday, July 25.<\/p>\n

In the main event, two of the top welterweights in the world were
\ndue to battle it out as 2025 tournament champion Thad Jean<\/a> was
\nset to fight 2024 tourney king Shamil
\nMusaev<\/a>, but the latter had complications with his weight cut
\nand was replaced by Ernesto
\nRodriguez<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We were initially scheduled to an incredible fight on paper, but
\nwhat we got in practice was somehow even more special as Jean and
\nRodriguez went to war from the bell. Jean was rattled by Rodriguez
\nright hands multiple times in the opening frame, but gave as good
\nas he got with some blistering kicks and a couple of guillotine
\nattempts. The second stanza, though, was all Rodriguez as he
\ndropped Jean with a combination and had him in bad trouble on
\nseveral occasions as Jean amazingly fought through a number of
\nrear-naked choke attempts. Jean’s conditioning heldin the end and
\nwas the difference in the third period as he ended up on top from a
\nscramble before forcing referee Mario Yamasaki to stop the fight
\nwith ground-and-pound. With the win, Jean was crowned PFL
\nwelterweight champ.<\/p>\n

The two fights directly preceding that were a duo of
\nlight-heavyweight clashes with possible contender implications as
\nRasul
\nMagomedov<\/a> took on Sullivan
\nCauley<\/a> before former
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> 205er Tyson Pedro<\/a>
\nlocked horns with Rafael
\nXavier<\/a>. The former was an absolute scrap for the ages as
\nMagomedov and Cauley traded takedowns, knockdowns and cuts in a
\nbrawl of the year contender which Magomedov ended up winning on the
\ncards. Xavier then got a first-round TKO stoppage of Pedro after a
\nprolonged attack of calf kicks left the Australian barely able to
\nstand. Xavier was able to overwhelm Pedro late in the stage and
\nfinish him with grounded elbows against the cage in a
\npicture-perfect performance.<\/p>\n

<\/center>
\n
The opening main card match-up saw Eliezer
\nKubanza<\/a>‘s coming out fighting against Chris Mixan<\/a>
\nas the DR Congo man landed some heavy strikes before a second round
\nbrabo choke put away Mixan.<\/p>\n

On the undercard, former PFL Africa champion Nkosi
\nNdebele<\/a> produced the standout performance. The South African
\nleft Brandon
\nDavis<\/a> bloodied and battered after a unanimous 30-26 victory
\nfollowing a kick-heavy domination where Ndebele almost finished
\nDavis twice with, secondly, late ground-and-pound in the third and
\nwith an Anderson
\nSilva<\/a>-esque front kick to the face midway through the second
\nframe.<\/p>\n

Four-time All-American wrestler Bryce
\nMeredith<\/a> headlined the prelims against Michael Cyr<\/a>
\nin a fantastic fight which could be best described as a grappler’s
\ndelight as Meredith took home a unanimous decision win after 15
\nminutes of Cyr’s jiu-jitsu just falling short against the heavy
\nwrestling and ground striking of Meredith.<\/p>\n

A lightweight
\ntitle fight headlines PFL NY: Tune on Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. ET
\non ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There were also mixed results for debuting pros as highly-touted
\nChad
\nYard<\/a> started well but was choked out by experienced 10-fight
\nveteran Coby
\nBradford<\/a> with a rear-naked choke in Round 2. While opening the
\ncard, D2 national champion wrestler Noah
\nHermosillo<\/a> made a more successful professional debut against
\nJacob
\nPais<\/a> as he eased his way to a decision win with a takedown
\ninside the opening minute of each round which led to prolonged
\nsegments of ground-and-pound to claim his maiden victory. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THAD JEAN GAVE 110% \ud83d\udd0b WHAT A BATTLE#PFLDC | Main Card LIVE NOW on ESPN pic.twitter.com\/iTAj3uzkjn \u2014 PFL (@PFLMMA) July 26, 2026 Advertisement Thad Jean overcomes late replacement Ernesto Rodriguez after Shamil Musaev withdraws to capture the PFL welterweight championship Carefirst Arena in Washington, D.C., was the venue for Professional Fighters League‘s latest \u201cSummer Series\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-martial-arts-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.martialartskleinanzeigen.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}