Leandro Higo to Fight Defending Bellator Bantamweight Champion Patchy Mix

Leandro Higo is officially in the mix

The 35-year-old Brazilian mixed martial artist will fight Patchy Mix in the main event of the Bellator Champions Series: Paris at the Adidas Arena when Bellator returns to Paris on November 16.

Leandro Higo,Mix is return to action to defend his Bellator bantamweight championship against Higo.

Mix (20-1) is looking to bounce back after an underwhelming split decision win over Magomed Magomedov in May.

This will be Mix’s second defense of the title that he unified when he defeated Sergio Pettis by submission in November 2023.

Mix, ESPN’s No. 7-ranked bantamweight, is riding an eight-fight winning streak.

Higo hopes to cash in on his second opportunity to capture 135-pound gold after back-to-back wins over Nikita Mikhailov and James Gallagher.

The latter he faced on short notice in a featherweight bout.

He fell short in his first attempt back in 2018 when he was submitted by Darrion Caldwell.

The co-main event features the undefeated Baissangour “Basi” Chamsoudinov (8-0) returning to home soil for a fight with Sweden’s Oliver Enkamp (11-4). This will be Chamsoudinov’s first fight since he defeated Cedric Doumbé in highly controversial fashion. The fight was stopped when Doumbe had a piece of glass embedded in his left foot and Chamsoudinov was awarded a TKO.

Patricio “Pitbull” Freire to Fight Sergio Pettis at Bellator 297 for Chance to Become Three-Division Champion

Patricio “Pitbull” Freire is hoping to make history…

The 35-year-old Brazilian mixed martial artist, who reigns at featherweight and vacated the lightweight title in 2021, will go for a third belt when he takes on bantamweight champ Sergio Pettis at Bellator 297 on June 16 in Chicago.

Patricio "Pitbull" FreireIf he wins, Freire will become the first three-division champ in a major fight promotion.

The bout at Wintrust Arena will serve as the co-main event of another newly announced title fight, in which light heavyweight champ Vadim Nemkov will defend against Yoel Romero. Those two originally were slated to meet in February, but Nemkov withdrew for an undisclosed reason.

The bantamweight title bout will be Pettis’ second defense of a championship he won in 2021. He has won five fights in a row, a run extending back to his time with the UFC, but has not competed since December 2021 because of injury.

Freire, who already is arguably the most accomplished fighter in Bellator MMA history, has won three in a row and 10 of his past 11.

The Pettis-Freire winner is expected to face the winner of the ongoing Bellator Bantamweight World Grand Prix. Interim champ Raufeon Stots and Patchy Mix will meet in the tournament final April 22.

Nemkov is unbeaten in his past 11 fights, most recently winning a decision over Corey Anderson in November for his third successful title defense.

Romero, a 2000 Olympic silver medalist in wrestling who in 2020 challenged for the UFC middleweight belt, has won two in row, both by knockout. He will be 46 years old on fight night.

Juan Archuleta is Bellator’s New Bantamweight Champion

Juan Archuleta is officially a world titleholder…

The 33-year-old Spanish and Mexican American mixed martial artist, who has stayed mostly under the radar during a successful run that extends back half a decade, scored his highest-profile win in the main event of Bellator 246, defeating previously unbeaten Patchy Mix by unanimous decision to earn the vacant bantamweight championship.

Juan Archuleta

Archuleta (25-2) has won 19 of his past 20 bouts; his only loss during the run was a decision loss to two-division champion Patricio Freire a year ago. Freire, known as “Pitbull,” was defending his featherweight belt that night in the first round of the Bellator World Grand Prix tournament.

But now Archuleta finally wears a belt.

Two judges scored Saturday’s bout 48-47 and the other had it 49-46.

“Oh, my God,” Archuleta told Bellator’s John McCarthy in his post-fight interview inside the cage. “My family, John, they deserve this. My teammates, they deserve this, man. My country, Spain, where my ancestors come from, the fighting Spaniards, the conquistadors, they deserve this. They have fighting spirit. It shows in me.”

Archuleta, fighting out of Hesperia, California, had a rough first round and a half as Mix, who had finishes in each of his first three Bellator fights, repeatedly seized dominant grappling positions, threatening finishes.

But Archuleta persevered. He took control in Round 3 with body shots complemented by slick footwork. That kept him at long range, where Mix could no longer make the fight a grappling contest. For the rest of the fight, Archuleta was consistently first in launching strikes, and his incessant movement left Mix (13-1), a 27-year-old fighting out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, often swinging at air.

In Round 5, Archuleta sealed the deal, slowing Mix with a relentless attack of body punches. That secured for Archuleta a Bellator bantamweight title that had been vacant since Kyoji Horiguchi surrendered the championship last November while recovering from an injury.