NEW DELHI — Former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis will return to boxing against 27-fight professional Neeraj Goyat in a six-round super welterweight bout at 154 pounds on 23 January. The event is presented by IPBL Boxing and sanctioned by the Indian Boxing Council, with a host city yet to be officially announced but expected to be revealed in November with Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Chennai in contention.
Pettis is 1-1 in the boxing ring. He earned a majority decision win over Roy Jones Jr at Gamebred Boxing 4 in April 2023 before dropping a decision to Chris Avila on the Diaz vs Masvidal boxing event in his most recent combat sports appearance a little over a year later. There is added family motivation after his younger brother Sergio Pettis competed in a boxing bout in India in March 2025 and dropped a unanimous decision to Sabari Jaishankar. “I have seen what Indian fighters can do, and Neeraj is the best of them,” Pettis said. “That is who I want. I have thought a lot about Sergio’s loss. This one is for him, and I am coming to win.”
Goyat arrives riding a five-fight win streak, including a win over Whindersson Nunes on the Paul vs Tyson card, and views the homecoming as a landmark moment. “I have fought in China, in Thailand, in America and in the UK, and every time I was the Indian on somebody else’s card,” Goyat said. “This time the card is ours. I want to thank MVP and Nakisa Bidarian for believing in me and helping bring this moment to India. Anthony is a real champion and I respect everything he has done, but I have waited my whole career to fight a name like this in front of my own people. I am not giving that night away.”
MVP co-founders Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian said they signed Goyat to help elevate Indian boxing onto the world stage. “We signed Neeraj because we believed he had the potential to become a global boxing star and help put Indian boxing on the world stage,” Paul and Bidarian said in a joint statement. “Now he has the opportunity to headline a historic event in his home country against one of the biggest names in combat sports. Anthony Pettis is an MMA icon, but this is boxing, and we expect Neeraj to show exactly why we believed in him from day one.”