Khizriev and Braga Run It Back With the Division Watching

Timur Khizriev vs Gabriel Braga is the featherweight co main at PFL Chicago on Friday, October 16, and it is a fight both men have been waiting on. Their first meeting went to a split decision and decided a place in a championship final. Chicago is the first real chance either has had to get back there.

The PFL featherweight division has moved since these two last met, and both men are trying to move with it. Khizriev won the first fight and then won the featherweight world championship, and he has not competed since. Braga lost that fight and kept working, staying near the top of a division that has not stopped turning over. One of them is returning from an absence he did not choose. The other has spent the time in between making the case that the first result should have gone the other way.

Timur Khizriev is a Dagestani featherweight who fights out of Makhachkala and Coconut Creek, and he has not lost as a professional. Known as Imam, he came up through wrestling and Sanda before turning to mixed martial arts, and he trains out of DagFighter and American Top Team. His game is control, chaining takedown entries into long stretches of top position where pressure and positional work do the damage. He won the PFL featherweight world championship by outworking former champion Brendan Loughnane across five rounds. Then his career stopped, first by a violent attack that required surgery, then by the long recovery that followed.

WATCH: Featherweight Final Fight, Brendan Loughnane v Timur Khizriev, Full Fight, PFL 2024 Championship

Gabriel Braga is a Brazilian featherweight out of Rio de Janeiro who fights from Tropa Thai, the gym his late father founded. He grew up on Muay Thai and carries the kind of right hand that ends nights, including the knockout that preceded Marlon Moraes retiring from the sport. He earned his place on the roster through the Challenger Series and reached a featherweight championship final in his first campaign with the organization. He is more than a striker, having taken a first round submission by neck crank when an opponent chose to grapple with him. He comes into this fight with a specific grievance and a specific opponent to take it out on.

WATCH: 2024 PFL Playoffs Highlights, Timur Khizriev defeats Gabriel Braga

This is wrestling against striking, and the first fight showed how narrow the gap is. Khizriev wants to close distance, get to the body lock and turn the fight into a grind on the mat where nobody has solved him yet. Braga wants space, distance he can manage and a clean look at the right hand that has finished fights outright. The first meeting came down to which of those happened more often, and two judges saw it one way while the third saw it the other. Whether a long layoff changes Khizriev's pace is the variable neither man can answer until the cage door shuts.

For Khizriev, a win ends the layoff cleanly and puts him back in line for a featherweight world title fight. For Braga, a win avenges the only fight standing between him and a championship run, and it does it against a former champion coming back. In a division this crowded, the winner gets a title conversation and the loser gets back in line.

PFL Chicago takes place on Friday, October 16 at Wintrust Arena in Chicago, with the main card starting at 11 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Tickets are on sale now at pfl.info/chicago. Two years after a split decision, Khizriev and Braga get to settle it.