Welcome to Bellator MMA, Sergio Pettis. Pettis announced his arrival with an action-packed win at Bellator 238 in Los Angeles on Saturday.
Sergio Pettis made his promotional debut at Bellator 238 on Saturday night in Los Angeles. Another strong free agent signing for Scott Coker, another name added to a bantamweight division badly in need of fresh blood.
The lesser known Alfred Khashakyan served as the welcoming wagon. And lest you think Pettis was being lobbed a softball, consider that Khashakyan had a 100% finishing rate across his 11 wins.
Pettis and Khashakyan began exchanging almost from the opening bell. Pettis briefly caught a kick and threw a counter that hit home. After some competitive back-and-forth, Pettis then caught Khashakyan with a punch. That set up something of an extended finishing sequence. Pettis poured it on, landing blow after blow clean. The right hand had sent Khashakyan down, the follow-up blows were not defended but ref Mike Beltran let the fight go on a few extra seconds.
With Khashakyan a sitting duck, Pettis jumped on a guillotine, showing a bit of mercy in the long run. Khashakyan wasn’t about to get out of that submission, even if he still knew what postal code he was in. Which was debatable. The tap came, and Sergio Pettis earned the victory in his Bellator MMA debut.
Pettis is immediately in the conversation when it comes to title contention at 135lbs in Bellator. Kyoji Horiguchi recently vacated the title due to injury, and former champ Darrion Caldwell is up at featherweight at the moment. With the win, he improved to 19-5.
Official Result: Sergio Pettis def. Alfred Khashakyan by submission (guillotine choke), Round 1, 3:00
