“The Maori Kid,” otherwise known as Jay Jay Wilson, returns to action at PFL Champions Series 3 next month, looking to work his way to a title shot.
Last we saw lightweight Wilson, he’d defeated fellow Bellator vet Mads Burnell as part of the PFL’s Lightweight World Tournament. Wilson (11-1) had to pull out of the tournament ahead of his next match-up, however, due to a broken jaw.
The injury is something he detailed while speaking with Cageside Press recently.
“It’s been a long recovery. To be honest, the worst part about it was not being able to eat,” noted Wilson, who takes on Archie Colgan next. “The jaw’s feeling good now, the doctor says I’ve made a hundred percent recovery, which is great. So I’m excited.”
“The first week back training, I was very worried about it,” Wilson admitted on his now-healed jaw, noting that a bigger concern than being punched in the face was dealing with submissions. “For the first week, I was just pre-tapping. They’d just like grab my neck, I’d be like ‘okay, you’re good, start over.'”
“In terms of punching,” he added, “the first two sparring sessions I was very anxious about it. I was very worried, like ‘don’t hit me, don’t hit me,’ kind of thing. And then after I took a couple hits, I was like ‘okay I’m fine.'”
With Wilson out of the PFL World Tournament, it was Alfie Davis upsetting Gadzhi Rabadanov to claim the tournament championship. Davis is now poised to take on the winner of Usman Nurmagomedov vs. Paul Hughes, who compete in a rematch atop the PFL Champions Series 3 card.
That has Wilson taking callout, and revenge. “I want to get through Archie, and I want to call out Alfie. I think that would be a good little redemption, which allows me to win the title.” Alfie Davis, having defeated Rabadanov, has a win over the only fighter to defeat Jay Jay Wilson himself.
Later, Wilson would add that if it doesn’t work out, “if he doesn’t want to fight, I’ll take the number one contender. I don’t really care, I’ll take on anybody. Just send me a name, write the cheque, and then I go.”
When it comes to Colgan, meanwhile, Wilson questions how good his 12-0 record truly is.
“You go through the records, and there’s a couple notable names in there, but not really. Emmanuel Sanchez, he was a 45’er that moved up. Mansour [Barnaoui], but then I watched Mansour’s fight,” explained Wilson. “Mansour dropped his mouth guard, and then he just lost the entire second round, got cut up because of it. I fought Mansour, Mansour’s not an easy guy, he’s very very tough. I fought him and I dominated him for three rounds. Archie struggled with him. And if Mansour didn’t stupidly try to pick up his mouth piece and just mince the whole second round, that fight could have been a lot different.”
“I think I’m going to be able to exploit him. He’s going to be shooting for takedowns, he’s going to be praying. I’m just going to walk him down and do what I do,” Wilson finished.
Watch our full interview with PFL Champions Series 3’s Jay Jay Wilson above. The event takes place on October 3, 2025 in Dubai.
