14 October 2026: Indian boxer Neeraj Goyat will face former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis in a six-round super welterweight bout on Saturday, 23 January 2027, at the top of what the organisers call the biggest boxing card ever staged in India.
Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Chennai are in contention to host the fight, which will be held at 154 lbs. The host city and venue will be announced in November, along with the full card, broadcast and ticket details.
The event, billed as “Goyat vs Pettis: The Indian Uprising”, is presented by IPBL Boxing and sanctioned by the Indian Boxing Council. Goyat is promoted by Most Valuable Promotions (MVP).
Goyat’s road home
Goyat, 34, from Haryana, has a professional record of 21 wins, four defeats and two draws, with nine knockouts. He was the first Indian boxer to be ranked by the World Boxing Council and is a former WBC Asia champion.
In 2024 he became the first international fighter to sign with MVP, the promotion founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian. That November he beat Brazil’s Whindersson Nunes on the Jake Paul vs Mike Tyson card, which was watched live by 108 million people on Netflix.
“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,” Goyat said. He thanked MVP and Nakisa Bidarian for helping bring the fight to India, adding: “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 and a family score
Pettis, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has an MMA record of 25 wins and 14 defeats, with 11 knockouts. He beat Benson Henderson to win the WEC lightweight title in 2010 and again to take the UFC lightweight world title in 2013.
He made his professional debut in January 2007, so the fight comes 20 years after his first professional bout and a few days before his 40th birthday. Pettis is also a co-promoter of the Indian Fight League and the Indian Pro Boxing League and has spent the last two years working in Indian combat sports.
The fight has a personal edge. His younger brother, former Bellator bantamweight world champion Sergio Pettis, lost a unanimous decision to India’s Sabari Jaishankar at Road to IPBL 2 in Hyderabad in March 2025.
“I have seen what Indian fighters can do, and Neeraj is the best of them. That is who I want,” Pettis said. “I have thought a lot about Sergio’s loss. This one is for him, and I am coming to win.”
India’s top boxers on the undercard
The card will also feature some of India’s top-ranked professionals, including Akshay Chahal of Rohtak, Faizan Anwar of Kolkata, Pavan Kalyan of Hyderabad, Ritesh Singh of Dehradun and Laldinsanga Ramlawt of Mizoram.
IPBL Boxing, co-founded by Akshar Madhavaram and Prashanth Singh along with actor and producer Rana Daggubati, runs the Indian Pro Boxing League and the BoxingBay fight series.
“Every big sport in this country started with one night that people still talk about years later. This can be that night for boxing,” Daggubati said.
MVP co-founders Bidarian and Paul said they signed Goyat because they believed he could become a global star. “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,” they said.
