Tyson Pedro Falls to 0-2 in PFL After First-Round KO in Washington

Tyson Pedro's comeback keeps getting shorter. The 34-year-old Australian was knocked out by Brazil's Rafael Xavier with exactly one second left on the clock in the opening round at Saturday's PFL card in Washington, DC, dropping him to 0-2 since he ended his retirement and signed with the organization.

It's a brutal way to lose, and it caps a rough stretch. Pedro's PFL debut in April went the distance but ended in a unanimous-decision loss to Dovletdzhan Yagshimuradov. This time the judges never got a say. Xavier closed the show inside three minutes on the undercard, before Thad Jean survived his own scare in the main event.

The frustrating part is that Pedro once looked like the real thing. He opened his UFC run by submitting Khalil Rountree Jr. and knocking out Paul Craig — two names who are still fixtures in the light heavyweight division, with Rountree currently sitting at #5 in the rankings. For a stretch, Pedro was the promising prospect everyone wanted to watch.

Where It Went Sideways

A torn ACL against Mauricio Rua in 2018 stopped the momentum cold, and Pedro never quite got it back. His UFC tenure ended in 2024 with a loss to Vitor Petrino — who has since moved up to heavyweight and is booked against Serghei Spivac. Pedro retired on the spot after that defeat, which caught plenty of fans off guard.

What came next made the MMA return look even stranger. Pedro switched to boxing and thrived: he knocked out a 15-0 prospect on debut, then claimed the inaugural WBC Silver International bridgerweight title in February 2025. He was winning. He was building something. And then he walked away from it to go back to the cage.

So far that bet hasn't paid. Two PFL fights, two losses, one of them a first-round finish — hardly the return anyone in his camp scripted. Pedro said he intends to keep pushing forward, but a second straight defeat raises the obvious question of whether the ring, where he actually had his hand raised, is the smarter home. Retirement worked out better the first time around.