Neeraj Goyat to meet Anthony Pettis in six-round super-welterweight bout in India on Jan. 23, 2027
Most Valuable Promotions’ (MVP) Indian boxer Neeraj Goyat will face former UFC lightweight world champion Anthony “Showtime” Pettis in a six-round super welterweight bout at 154 lbs on Saturday, January 23, 2027, in India. The event is presented by IPBL Boxing and sanctioned by the Indian Boxing Council, with Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Chennai under consideration and the host city and venue to be announced in November.
Goyat enters the fight with a professional record of 21-4-2, 9 KOs; he is 34 and from Haryana. Pettis’s combat record is listed as 25-14-0 in MMA with 11 KOs. MVP — the American boxing and MMA promotion founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian — signed Goyat in 2024 as its first international fighter.
Goyat has spent more than a decade campaigning Indian professional boxing abroad and is the first Indian boxer to be ranked by the World Boxing Council and a former WBC Asia champion. In November 2024 he defeated Brazil’s Whindersson Nunes on the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson card, a night the article describes as watched live by 108 million people on Netflix. Goyat said: “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. 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.”
Pettis is from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, won the WEC Lightweight title in 2010 and the UFC Lightweight World Championship in 2013, beating Benson Henderson for both. He made his professional debut in January 2007, making the January 23 fight fall 20 years after his first professional fight and occur days before he turns 40. Outside the ring, Pettis is a co-promoter of the Indian Fight League (IFL) and the Indian Pro Boxing League (IPBL) and has spent the last two years helping build combat sports in India.
The bout is presented as personal for Pettis, whose younger brother Sergio Pettis — a former Bellator Bantamweight World Champion — fought in Hyderabad at Road to IPBL 2 in March 2025 and lost a unanimous decision to India’s Sabari Jaishankar. On that connection Pettis said: “I have seen what Indian fighters can do, and Neeraj is the best of them. 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.”
IPBL Boxing says the Goyat–Pettis pairing will headline the biggest card in the history of Indian boxing and will feature India’s top-ranked fighters, including Akshay Chahal of Rohtak, Faizan Anwar of Kolkata, Pavan Kalyan of Hyderabad, Ritesh Singh of Dehradun and Laldinsanga Ramlawt of Mizoram, alongside other leading domestic fighters. IPBL Boxing’s founders are Akshar Madhavaram and Prashanth Singh, alongside actor and producer Rana Daggubati; the promoter runs the Indian Pro Boxing League and the BoxingBay fight series and its events have been broadcast live on DAZN, UFC Fight Pass and aha.
Rana Daggubati said: “Every big sport in this country started with one night that people still talk about years later. This can be that night for boxing. A world champion and India’s best fighter, in front of an Indian crowd. We have never had that before, and I can’t wait to be ringside.” Akshar Madhavaram added: “We have brought WBC title fights to India, produced shows for UFC Fight Pass and DAZN, and built the IPBL and the IFL from the ground up. Anthony has been part of that journey from the start. Now he steps into the ring for IPBL against MVP’s own Neeraj. Call it fate.” Nakisa Bidarian and Jake Paul said: “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. 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.”
The host city and venue will be announced in November, when the promoters say they will also release the full card, broadcast and ticket details.