Vadim Nemkov and Sergei Bilostenniy both made it through Friday’s official weigh-ins in Dubai, and the PFL heavyweight world title fight is officially on. Nemkov registered 244.6 pounds. Bilostenniy came in at 262, so the two men stepped off the scale separated by 17.4 pounds, a number that’ll get chewed over right up until the cage door shuts on Saturday night.
The PFL posted the results bout by bout on X Friday morning, and MiddleEasy confirmed the headliners’ numbers shortly after. Sherdog reported that the whole session went off without issue. That means no misses, no last-minute catchweights and no scrambled bout order. Everything booked for Saturday, November 14, at the Coca Cola Arena stands.
The rest of the scale
Sergio Pettis hit 135 pounds exactly for his bantamweight fight with Joji Goto, who weighed 135.4. Hitting the mark on the nose is the kind of quiet detail I love seeing from a veteran. It suggests a cut that went the way it was planned, with nothing left to chance.
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The featherweight bout between Khasan Magomedsharipov and Adam Borics is locked in after Magomedsharipov weighed 146 and Borics came in at 145.8. Anyone who follows the division knows that pairing has real fireworks potential, and it’s set.
The second heavyweight bout on the card had its own size gap, smaller than the title fight’s. Pouya Rahmani weighed 245.1 and Oleg Popov came in at 251.2, a difference of 6.1 pounds.
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At welterweight, Patrick Habirora weighed 169.8 and Omar El Dafrawy weighed 170.8. In the lightweight bout, Shem Rock tipped the scale at 156 and Connor Hughes came in at 155.6.
The whole event streams on the ESPN App. Prelims start at 9 a.m. ET and the main card follows at 1 p.m. ET, which puts the title fight in a late-morning or early-afternoon slot for most American viewers.
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Quick take
The 17.4-pound gap is the number everybody will quote, and it should be. That’s a significant spread for a title fight, and Bilostenniy will be carrying every one of those pounds into the cage. Heavyweight weigh-ins can mislead, though. The lighter man often keeps his speed and cardio deep into a fight, and Nemkov showing up at 244.6 reads to me like a deliberate choice about how he wants this fight to look. Whether that bet pays off gets decided Saturday at Coca Cola Arena, with the main card going live at 1 p.m. ET.
