{"id":7201,"date":"2026-03-19T13:52:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/7201\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:52:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T13:52:05","slug":"joe-schilling-books-first-mma-fight-since-2019-at-pfl-brussels-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/7201\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Schilling books first MMA fight since 2019 at PFL Brussels"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Schilling is returning to MMA competition for the first time since October 2019 and combat sports for the first time in more than two years at PFL Brussels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Schilling (4-6), a veteran of six fights in the now-defunct Bellator organization, is set to put the MMA gloves back on for a showdown with former GLORY Kickboxing champion Donegi Abena (0-0), who will be making his MMA debut at the May 23 event from ING Arena in Brussels, Belgium (ESPN Unlimited<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

A person with knowledge of matchup verified the booking to MMA Junkie on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Schilling, 42, made his exit from MMA following a knockout loss to Tony Johnson at Bellator 229. He had a pair of fights scratched in the following years before facing former UFC champ Luke Rockhold at Karate Combat 45 in April 2024, which he lost by third-round knockout.<\/p>\n

He now makes his return in what should be an all-striking affair with Abena, who went 31-11 during his kickboxing career with losses to notables such as Alex Pereira<\/a>, Artem Vakhitov and Jairzinho Rozenstruik.<\/p>\n

At 28, Abena signed with PFL in December and now finally has his promotional debut set.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The latest PFL Brussels card now includes:<\/p>\n

Patrick Habirora vs. Benson Henderson<\/p>\n

Jake Hadley vs. Taylor Lapilus<\/p>\n

Boris Mbarga Atangana vs. Jared Gooden<\/p>\n

Asael Adjoudj vs. Keisuke Sasu<\/p>\n

Baris Adiguzel vs. Gustavo Oliveira<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Joe Schilling books first MMA fight since 2019 at PFL Brussels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe Schilling is returning to MMA competition for the first time since October 2019 and combat sports for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5209,3458,18,5206,5211,5205,5210,3449,5207,5208,5212],"class_list":{"0":"post-7201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-alex-pereira","9":"tag-bellator","10":"tag-brussels","11":"tag-donegi-abena","12":"tag-glory-kickboxing","13":"tag-joe-schilling","14":"tag-luke-rockhold","15":"tag-mma","16":"tag-mma-gloves","17":"tag-mma-junkie","18":"tag-tony-johnson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116256174636336212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}