World super-middleweight boxing champion Savannah Marshall is set to step into a new world of professional combat sport as she swaps boxing for MMA at PFL Europe 2 in Newcastle.
Marshall will make her professional MMA debut in the main event at the Utilita Arena, where she’ll take on Brazil’s Mirela Vargas in a 160-pound bout, and she tipped the scale at 160.8 pounds to make her involvement official. For her part, Vargas made weight with room to spare, coming in at 158.7 pounds.
The bulk of the rest of the fight card features fighters involved in PFL Europe’s regular season. The co-main event will see lightweights Kane Mousah and Dylan Tuke go head to head. The pair are seasoned veterans of the European scene, and their light-hearted exchanges during fight week showed that they were both comfortable with the job in hand, and ready to save the aggression for fight night.
It was a similar tale with English welterweights Jack Grant and Charlie Leary, who both possess a wealth of experience, and head into the weekend laser-focused on victory.
If those four athletes were staying cool and calm, Lewis McGrillen and Matiss Zaharovs were just about keeping their rivalry in check as they engaged in a lively back-and-forth during a head-to-head interview with Head of Fighter Operations Dan Hardy, then engaged in a tense faceoff later in the week.
There was also a tense faceoff between bantamweights Dean Garnett and Ayton De Paepe but, after the Belgian contender missed weight by 1.5 pounds and was subsequently transported to hospital, their matchup was removed from the fight card.
The only other fighter to miss weight during the official weigh-in session was Irish flyweight Dee Begley, who came in 4.3 pounds over the non-title flyweight limit for her bout with Paulina Wisniewska. The bout is expected to continue, as planned.
Recap the ceremonial weigh-ins, and check out the full list of official weights below.
PFL Europe 2: Official weigh-in results
MAIN CARD
- Savannah Marshall (160.8) vs. Mirela Vargas (158.7)
- Kane Mousah (155.5) vs. Dylan Tuke (155.7)
- Jack Grant (170.2) vs. Charlie Leary (170.2)
- Lewis McGrillen (135.4) vs. Matiss Zaharovs (135.2)
- Shanelle Dyer (125.7) vs. Mariam Torchinava (125.7)
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Ibragim Ibragimov (145.9) vs. Josh Reed (145.1)
- Dominique Wooding (135.7) vs. Julien Pierre Lopez (135.4)
- Lizzy Gevers (124.9) vs. Karolina Wojcik (125.3)
- Mark Ewen (155.1) vs. Claudio Pacella (155.6)
- Khurshed Kakhorov (135.7) vs. Tuomas Gronvall (134)
- Valentina Scatizzi (125.9) vs. Marie Loiseau (125.4)
- Ben Woolliss (144.7) vs. Nikola Ivanovic (144)
- Alexander Luster (135.8) vs. Alperen Karabulut (135.6)
- Dee Begley (130.3*) vs. Paulina Wisniewska (125.1)
