Written by Corey Anderson’s long layoff finally comes to an end on Saturday when he competes at heavyweight for the first time in over a decade with a fight booked against 2024 PFL champion Denis Goltsov.
For the past 16 months, the last Bellator light heavyweight champion has been stuck in purgatory while waiting for his bosses at the PFL to book him a new fight. He was initially expected to return in January for a trilogy against Vadim Nemkov but that matchup ended up being nixed and he continued waiting for a phone call that would get him back to work.
When he finally got word that PFL was offering him a fight at heavyweight, Anderson didn’t blink at the opponent because he was just ready to resume his career after the longest break he’s ever taken since he first started competing back in 2013.
“This heavyweight fight when it came, [my manager] Ali [Abdelaziz] called me with the name ‘brother, what do you think?’ I didn’t really think, I said I’ll take it,” Anderson told MMA Fighting. “He said ‘you sure? Have you even looked at him?’ No, I haven’t really looked at him but I’ll take it.
“After I got off the phone, I got super nervous, it was like 11 o’clock at night and I’m like oh snap, what did I just do? I looked him up, this guy’s a real big heavyweight. The next morning I woke up like let’s go! I wasn’t scared, I was just nervous. I started studying, I see what he does well and then I got excited.”
Truth be told, Anderson didn’t really see a lot of great options at light heavyweight so taking a stab at a new division was a fresh, fun challenge. Add to that, the nervousness Anderson felt was weirdly exhilarating because he just wasn’t getting those same vibes from any of the potential matchups available to him at 205 pounds.
“The thing about the people left at 205 [pounds], once Vadim left it was kind like I still train everyday — I’m going to train regardless, I’m going to go hard — but that fear kind of wasn’t there,” Anderson explained. “There’s the chances of the ‘what if’ but it wasn’t like a fear, I didn’t feel there was any new faces. Nothing I’ve never seen. Nothing like they could be tough fights but what if?”
There’s a risk and reward in every fight but the payoff beating Goltsov could end up even bigger if Anderson looks impressive and decides to stick around at heavyweight.
The biggest name in the PFL currently is former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, who has only fought for the promotion one time with no real indication on when he might fight again.
Anderson doesn’t have any insights into Ngannou’s plans for the future but he’s certainly open to that fight if the PFL has the same idea in mind.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Francis? Has anybody heard anything?” Anderson said. “They’re promoting his PFL Africa and all this stuff and then you heard Francis’ coach say he’s willing to go back to the UFC. What’s going on with him? He’s still on the table for people to fight?
“As long as the money makes sense, I’m all about it. That’s where I’m at in this career. Getting belts and checks, that’s it.”
Truth be told, Anderson may just have better options available at heavyweight than the current crop of contenders in the light heavyweight division.
“Ryan Bader left so what’s the belt look like there?” Anderson said about the former Bellator heavyweight champion. “They say the winner of the PFL tournament is supposed to fight the heavyweight champ but now there’s no heavyweight champ from Bellator. I was told the PFL champ from last year was supposed to fight a 205’er this year. That’s [Dovletdzhan] Yagshimuradov, I beat him already.
“So if I win this and I’m still the 205-pound champ, per se, who is he going to fight? Are they going to have him fight the champion of this year? You just don’t know.”
For now, Anderson can only worry about what’s directly ahead of him and that’s Goltsov.
If he gets the job done on Saturday and dominates or finishes Goltsov in impressive fashion, Anderson expects new and exciting opportunities are going to fall in his lap. Maybe that’s the Ngannou fight or something else but Anderson isn’t going to back down from any challenge as long as it serves his long term goals of winning championships and making his bank account that much fatter.
“We’re going to prepare for this and we’ll see what happens,” Anderson said. “If they say we’re going back to 205 next [or] if the fight is so dominant they’re like ‘we want you to fight for the heavyweight belt or we want you to fight a super fight against Francis.’ Whatever it is, we’re just going to be prepared.
“If it don’t make money, it don’t make sense. We know the money’s going to be there. Same thing with Goltsov. The only reason the opportunity came is the money. The opportunity, they reached out and the way they set the contract and everything up, I’m like yes, 100 percent. Well worth it.”