Impa Kasanganay to meet Dovlet Yagshimuradov, Brent Primus to face Gadzhi Rabadanov in PFL Finals

Impa Kasanganay outlasted Josh Silveira in the 2023 PFL light heavyweight championship, and he did it again Friday in the semifinals at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Fla., winning yet another unanimous decision.

Kasanganay said before the bout that he wanted to get a finish, to not only one-up his performance from last year but to keep his KO streak alive. He had scored a pair of stoppages in his two regular season fights in 2024 and said he wanted to win all four bouts by KO.

Fighting for the ninth time in 17 months, Kasanganay has now won three in a row and nine of his past 10.

He'll move on to the finals and another shot at the $1 million prize, after winning a unanimous decision by scores of 29-28 twice and 30-27. He'll face third-seeded Dovlet Yagshimuradov, who defeated 2022 champion Rob Wilkinson by unanimous decision in what was a close and action-packed battle. Yaghsimuradov won by 30-27 on all three judges' cards, but it was a close fight which could have gone either way.

In the first of two lightweight semifinals, former Bellator champion Brent Primus had no issues with Clay Collard in claiming a unanimous decision. Primus used his wrestling and grappling to control Collard from start to finish and he rightfully earned a unanimous decision by scores of 30-27 twice and 30-26.

Primus will meet Gadzhi Rabadanov, who scored a second-round TKO of Michael Dufort in the other semifinal. Rabadanov, a protege of the legendary Khabib Nurmagomedov, dropped Dufort with a left and immediately finished him with ground strikes.

In the main card opener, which was not a part of the playoffs, Biaggio Ali Walsh cracked Brian Stapleton with a blistering right hand that dropped Stapleton immediately. Ali Walsh, the grandson of Muhammad Ali, followed him to the ground and quickly finished the fight.

“He was amazing," Ray Sefo, the PFL's president of fighter operations, said of Ali Walsh. "He was patient, picked his shots and was able to finish the guy in under a minute. We look forward to getting him back into the SmartCage shortly and continuing to watch him grow as a pro fighter.”