Former Bellator light heavyweight champion turned heavyweight Vadim Nemkov will now face Tim Johnson at PFL: Road To Dubai, Champions Series, on Jan 25.
PFL made the announcement on social media on Monday.
Johnson (18-10) last fought in August 2024, losing to Denis Goltson who would go on to win the entire tournament, and went 4-5 in Bellator before his current 1-1 record with PFL. Notably Johnson has fought two members of Fedor Team including namesake Fedor Emelianenko and Nemkov teammate Valentin Moldavsky.
Nemkov (18-2) now gets his third opponent for the Dubai card with Johnson stepping in. Nemkov was originally set to face Ante Delija, but the fight fell out due to Delija having surgery shortly before the announcement was made.
The fight was news to Delija and was quickly canceled by the promotion.
Then Bellator light heavyweight champion Corey Anderson stepped in to face Nemkov. Except that was also premature as Nemkov refused to fight Anderson on short notice.
“On short notice? It’s seven or eight weeks out, we fought twice, what are you talking about,” Anderson told MMAFighting in December.
“I wake up Saturday morning getting ready to go to sparring at 7:30 and my phone had an email ‘just go ahead and scratch it, we’ve been going at him all day, about 24 hours and he’s giving a hard no. He wants another opponent. He doesn’t want you. He’ll take another opponent, he wants to stay on the card.”
Guess we’ll have to wait and see if this one will actually go down on Jan 25.
