Dalton Rosta is paired up in a rematch with Aaron Jeffery at PFL Chicago this Friday, one of two Middleweight World Tournament semifinal bouts taking place on the night.
For Rosta, it’s a chance to both avenge a loss, and move into the finale. Jeffery won the pair’s first meeting, scoring a unanimous decision victory at Bellator 298 in August of 2023.
To make it to the PFL World Tournament semifinals, Rosta put away former welterweight champ Sadibou Sy, in a finish he had predicted. In his prefight media, Rosta suggested he would “take him down, put on a wrestling clinic, and submit him,” he told Cageside Press in a recent exclusive interview. “Get my first submission win.”
He did just that, though despite beating a former champ, it wasn’t the confidence boost you might think it was. Rosta doesn’t seem to lack in confidence. Instead, “I think I just put the rest of the weight class on notice. I know how good I am. I knew it beforehand, I knew it during, I knew it after. Nothing’s changed for me.”
Well, almost nothing. Dalton Rosta has been busy improving since that 2023 loss to Jeffery, the only defeat on his record. That includes in the striking department, though he hasn’t been able to show it much. “I think I’m improving every single fight. If I’m not getting better every single day, I’m doing something wrong,” noted Rosta. “However, I just feel like match-ups and stuff, I haven’t really had the opportunity to showcase my striking as much as I would like to. This fight coming up, I feel like it’s another opportunity to do that.”
What has improved the most for Rosta, however, isn’t a specific technique. Rather, “I think my mind set, my mentality has improved the most,” he told us. “I think that’s the biggest difference in me now.”
“Obviously I’ve improved everywhere else, I’m not neglecting any part of my game. I said this before too, I felt I was better than him [Jeffery] back then. I think in the first round, I showed what I was capable of, but I gassed out,” Rosta stated. “And that’s a part of the sport as well, it’s a part of MMA. I fought stupid, I could have fought more intelligently, and I could have followed my game plan better. Those things got away from me, and I ended up losing the fight. I feel like I beat myself that night. That aside though, I feel like I’m 10 times the fighter today than I was back then. So I’m just ready to go out there and showcase a dominant win on my end, and show everybody how much better I am than everybody else in this division.”
Watch our full interview with PFL Chicago middleweight World Tournament semifinalist Dalton Rosta above.
