Uncasville, CT — Heavyweight Linton Vassell heads into PFL 4 on Thursday looking to bounce back from a loss to Denis Goltsov in his first fight of the season, but off a win over the man he’s set to face in the rubber match of a trilogy, Valentin Moldavsky.
“Feeling great. I got the last win in the last fight, so I’ve got that on my side. Same business as usual,” Vassell (23-9, 1NC) told Cageside Press this week. “I’m ready, training hard. I’m fit, mentally strong so I’m ready to smack him up once again.”
Vassell knocked out former Bellator interim champ Moldavsky inside of a round in March of 2023, avenging a decision loss from the pair’s first meeting in 2019. The trilogy fight now serves as the main event of PFL 4 in Unvasville, CT. While Vassell is excited for the third enounter, he is coming off a loss, with all that entails in the PFL’s season format.
“I’ve been here before, I’ve lost fights before. It hurts, obviously it’s not what we want, but if you don’t learn from it you’re not really going to get anywhere. In this business, you do win, and you do learn,” Vassell explained, giving a twist on the popular “you win or you learn” slogan. “Everyone’s killers in this game. We’d all like to win every single fight; sometimes it don’t go our way. So if you don’t go back and look at the things that went wrong and level up for the next one, you’re not going to do very well.”
In the familiar confines of the Mohegan Sun Arena, where he has back-to-back wins, Vassell now looks for a third, and perhaps more importantly, a finish.
“I do have to win, but obviously I have to win with points. The win will come, and when I see that finish coming, it’s going to come.” That said, Vassell doesn’t plan to push for anything, or force anything. “I’ve learned from doing that before. The finish will come.”
Watch our full interview with PFL 4 headliner Linton Vassell above.
