Costello van Steenis knew the moment he wrapped up a buzzer-beating rear-naked choke to put Johnny Eblen to sleep and become PFL middleweight champion that his first title defense was going to end up as a rematch.
Undefeated prior to that stunning submission loss, Eblen seemed like a frontrunner to get another shot at van Steenis, especially given the attention their first fight received. The highlight reel finish was MMA Fighting’s Submission of the Year and even van Steenis has learned to embrace that moment after seemingly seeing it hundreds of times now.
“I’ve seen it everywhere,” van Steenis said about the finish when speaking to MMA Fighting. “I’ve seen GIF’s of it, I’ve seen stickers, I’ve seen poster. I even got a poster in Spain — one of my friends gave me a poster with me choking Johnny Eblen out so it’s there on the wall with our faces.
“I couldn’t imagine doing it any better. Defending a title in the fifth round, the last 10 seconds and losing that fight and then winning that fight at the end of the round like that, I believe it’s from a movie. It’s crazy.”
While he was open to a rematch, van Steenis instead runs it back with Fabian Edwards on Friday’s PFL event from Spain where the middleweights headline the card. Van Steenis already holds a split decision win over Edwards but more than anything, he really likes the stylistic matchup compared to back-to-back fights against Eblen.
“It’s like give me whoever but I believe Fabian did have good fights as the tournament champion,” van Steenis said. “He did fight three times and it’s more than fair enough. Making the tournament champion fight the champion, even though it’s for the third time this guy is getting a shot at the belt. That’s pretty crazy but it was either Fabian or Johnny Eblen. I didn’t really mind who got who. I just did the social media and the PFL picked whoever they picked and they gave me Fabian.
“It was beautiful because the dancing partner with Fabian is a lot better than Johnny Eblen. Johnny Eblen is a hard guy to fight because he makes the fight very boring. He wants to take you down and hold you there and Fabian is more ‘I’m going to hit you and I’m going to get hit.’”
There was a lot of tension and some trash talking ahead of the first fight but van Steenis admits he hasn’t heard Edwards chirping as much leading to the rematch.
He believes part of that comes down to Edwards realizing he’s about to get his third crack at becoming a world champion after two past losses to Eblen and earning a fourth title shot might seem unlikely.
Add to that, van Steenis believes that Edwards knows he’s forever living in his brother’s shadow when it comes to accomplishments in combat sports and that’s a mighty tough pill to swallow.
“I haven’t heard him talk a lot,” van Steenis said. “He does respect me a little bit more now. I believe so. If he starts throwing fire, I’ll throw fire back but I’ve got all the weapons in the world to not only beat him in a fight but even speaking back [to him].
“This is the third time he’s fighting for a world title. There’s only one real world champion in his family and that’s Leon Edwards. He’s never going to be a world champion. He can’t really say anything., He can only shut his mouth and have his fingers crossed to see if I get some bad luck.”
Knowing that the first fight ended in a razor-close decision also gives van Steenis even more motivation to show how much he’s improved since that matchup in 2020.
He expects Edwards to try and do the same but van Steenis knows he’s exceeded and surpassed his upcoming opponent in every metric that matters.
“Back six years ago, we were two kids in the MMA game,” van Steenis said. “We had some bad vibes, we had some bad history together. I remember him being fast, long reach and that of course hasn’t changed. He’s a better fighter than he used to be. I’m a lot better fighter than I used to be.
“I believe I’ve grown levels way above that he has been growing. I know I’m fighting a different man. He must know — and if he doesn’t he’s stupid — but he must know that he’s fighting a totally different man. We’re going to show each other on March 20 how much we’ve grown these past couple of years.”
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