Going into UFC Vegas 17 this past Saturday, former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis knew that he was heading into free agency.
As of Tuesday, “Showtime” took to social media to declare that he will, in fact, be departing from the promotion that he’s spent the last 10 years of his career in. Prepared to test the waters of free agency, many in the MMA community have already begun speculating where he could be headed and who some new matchups could be.
One, in particular, being a clash of flashy strikers that would pit Anthony Pettis vs. British welterweight standout, Michael “Venom” Page. Of course, that would mean Pettis would have to sign a contract with Bellator for that to happen. When it comes to the idea of the matchup, Bellator President Scott Coker thinks it would definitely be interesting to see.
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“It would be a lot of fun,” Coker told MMA Junkie regarding a Pettis vs. MVP fight. “That would be amazing. We’ll see. There’s only so many slots on TV for us. We’ll be having 22 to 26 fights [in 2021], and it’ll all be mapped out sometime in the next three weeks and we’ll figure it out. We’ll have a conversation and see where it goes.”
Coker also shared that he personally hasn’t been in contact with Anthony Pettis but believes his team surely has already had some level of discussion. Ultimately, the Bellator boss believes it comes down to the value Pettis can bring to his promotion going forward.
“Really it’s like, how much does he have left in the gas tank?” Coker pondered. “But we’ll definitely have that conversation, and we usually have that conversation with every free agent, whether we sign them or not. We’ll probably do the same thing with Pettis if we haven’t already done it.”
By scoring his unanimous decision win over Alex Morono at UFC Vegas 17, Pettis put together his first winning streak since he was champion in 2014. The 34-fight veteran’s younger brother Sergio made his Bellator debut in January 2020 and has won his first two fights under the Bellator umbrella.