UFC veteran Gerald Meerschaert has just stepped in on short notice to compete against fellow experienced MMA fighter and UFC middleweight Joe Pyfer at Fury Pro Grappling 7 on May 27th, 2023. The match is an incredibly interesting one actually, because the last MMA fight that both of these men had was against one another. They met a little over a month ago on the preliminary card of UFC 287, the same event that saw Gilbert Burns dominate Jorge Masvidal and Israel Adesanya regain the middleweight world championship.
This was only Pyfer’s second fight in the UFC after he won a contract by appearing on Dana White’s Contender Series, and he was coming off his successful debut. It should have been a tough challenge on paper given that Meerschaert is significantly more experienced, with 50 fights on his professional MMA record already. Pyfer won the fight by knockout in the very first round, dominating the early striking exchange and dropping Meerschaert before pouncing on the opportunity to finish him with some savage ground and pound.
Joe Pyfer was always booked to compete at Fury Pro Grappling 7, although his opponent was originally slated to be fellow MMA fighter Charles Radtke instead of Gerald Meerschaert. Now that Kochel has withdrawn from the match due to undisclosed reasons, Meerschaert has taken up the opportunity to get revenge against Pyfer. It’ll be interesting to see what happens once both men step on the mats because Meerschaert has been primarily a grappler in his MMA career. Pyfer on the other hand has won most of his fights by knockout or TKO, and Meerschaert didn’t get the chance to put Pyfer’s grappling ability to the test during their fight.
The news that Gerald Meerschaert was stepping in to compete against Joe Pyfer on short notice at Fury Pro Grappling 7 was announced in a post to the promotion’s official Instagram account:
