{"id":18764,"date":"2025-07-26T05:27:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/van-steenis-shocks-knocks-out-eblen-and-wins-the-pfl-championship\/"},"modified":"2025-07-26T05:27:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:27:17","slug":"van-steenis-shocks-knocks-out-eblen-and-wins-the-pfl-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/mma\/van-steenis-shocks-knocks-out-eblen-and-wins-the-pfl-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Steenis Shocks: Knocks Out Eblen and Wins the PFL Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Costello van Steenis Conquers the PFL Middleweight Championship<\/h2>\n\nIn a night full of emotions, Costello van Steenis won the PFL middleweight championship last Saturday, after submitting the experienced Johnny Eblen in the final seconds of their title fight.\n\nVan Steenis (17-3) took advantage of Eblen&#8217;s (16-1) fatigue in the fifth round, finishing the fight with a rear naked choke just nine seconds from the end. Eblen, who had won the Bellator MMA title in 2022 and held it in the PFL in 2024, dominated much of the fight, but visibly ran out of energy in the final moments.\n\nvan Steenis&#8217;s victory was surprising, considering his grappling ability, with six previous submission victories. Eblen was considered one of the best fighters outside the UFC, and was the favorite with a more than 5-1 advantage.\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dakota Ditcheva Dominates and Renews with PFL<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At the co-main event, Dakota Ditcheva demonstrated her superiority once again, defeating Sumiko Inaba by unanimous decision in three rounds. It was the first time since 2022 that Ditcheva (15-0) went to the decision, which was attributed more to Inaba&#8217;s resilience than a lack of effort on Ditcheva&#8217;s part. Furthermore, Ditcheva apparently suffered a fracture in her left hand during the last round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/a2.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=%2Fphoto%2F2025%2F0720%2Fr1521145_1296x729_16%2D9.jpg\" alt=\"Costello van Steenis won the PFL middleweight championship with a stunning submission victory over Johnny Eblen, who entered the bout as a 5-1 betting favorite.\" title=\"\"><figcaption>Costello van Steenis gan\u00f3 el campeonato de peso mediano de la PFL con una impresionante victoria por sumisi\u00f3n sobre Johnny Eblen, quien entr\u00f3 en la pelea como favorito 5-1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\nImmediately after her victory, Ditcheva, winner of the 2024 PFL Championship at 125 pounds, announced the signing of a new multi-year agreement with the promoter.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n\n<p>\u201cI just re-signed with PFL. We reached a great agreement,\u201d Ditcheva said. \u201cI look forward to the next few years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<cite>Dakota Ditcheva<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n<h2>AJ McKee Returns with Featherweight Victory<\/h2>\n\nIn a featherweight fight, former Bellator MMA champion AJ McKee (23-2) rebounded from a recent split-decision loss to Paul Hughes, defeating Akhmed Magomedov by unanimous decision. McKee, 30, consistently outgrappled Magomedov (11-2) and landed several clean left hands and body kicks. He also threatened with a rear-naked choke late in the fight.\n\nMcKee, who hadn&#8217;t fought at 145 pounds since 2022 due to a long stint at 155, indicated that he felt good at his old weight, calling it a &#8220;homecoming party&#8221;.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Costello van Steenis Conquers the PFL Middleweight Championship In a night full of emotions, Costello van Steenis won the PFL middleweight championship last Saturday, after submitting the experienced Johnny Eblen in the final seconds of their title fight. Van Steenis (17-3) took advantage of Eblen&#8217;s (16-1) fatigue in the fifth round, finishing the fight with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6251,6252,478,479],"class_list":{"0":"post-18764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-costello-van-steenis","9":"tag-dakota-ditcheva","10":"tag-mma","11":"tag-pfl"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}