When Costello van Steenis went down to Cape Town last July, it was as a 4-to-1 underdog. His opponent, the former Bellator middleweight champion Johnny Eblen, had cruised to a 16-0 record in his pro career, and looked entirely suited to win the inaugural PFL middleweight title. Van Steenis was cast in the role of afterthought.
And for the better part of four and a half rounds, he was exactly that. Eblen controlled the fight with his wrestling, to the point that the South African crowd booed whenever Eblen shot in. The referee, in the drowse of these endless sequences, warned Eblen to work whenever the stalemates happened. Then, late in the fight, within the context of the lull and in the deepest waters of the championship rounds as the clock was running down, van Steenis turned the thing cinematic.
He snatched victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat in the most epic way possible.
With Eblen on his back and 45 seconds left in the fight, he reversed the position, which jolted the crowd to life. Van Steenis elbowed Eblen as he sagged on his knees, before sinking his right arm under Eblen’s chin. The tables had turned, and now the end was unfolding in slow motion. The thoughts that led to it had been muted, but they awakened. The man who’d beaten van Steenis’ mentor, Gegard Mousasi, was now in his custody. Van Steenis squeezed with all his might as Cape Town came undone, looking up at the clock to see if there was still time. The referee shouted that there was 10 seconds left.
Ten. Nine. Eight.
The tap never came, but when the ref lifted Eblen’s arm, the realization hit home.
Goliath was already out. Seven seconds left on the clock. Bedlam in Cape Town.
“I was thinking, ‘Oh, this is crazy,’” Van Steenis says looking back on it eight months later. “Like I said before the fight, I was going to be the one to beat Johnny. I didn’t even care about the media, what the aftermath was. I didn’t even know what the aftermath was of that. I just really wanted to beat him. It made me more hungry to finish a guy that’s never been finished before, who, in fact had never lost before. And then after 16 professional fights, I was the one.”
The spoils of sticking the landing in such a dramatic upset are just as astounding as the feat itself. This weekend van Steenis headlines PFL’s foray into Spain, the childhood home of the man who calls himself “The Spaniard.” Born in Holland, Van Steenis lived in Altea, Spain, in Costa Blanca, from the time he was a toddler up until he was 20. It will be a hero’s welcome for one of the nation’s two MMA heroes.
The other being UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria, who has emerged as a tabloid sensation everywhere from Madrid down to the Mediterranean Coast of Alicante. Van Steenis and Topuria have exchanged messages over the years and are friendly with each other. They know their country is behind them, and the kind of scenes that await.
The thing is, while the UFC has yet to venture to Spain, the PFL is rolling up with its subwoofers blasted loud enough to make the foundation at the Palacio Vistalegre shake.
“I believed so hard in myself that I actually did it,” van Steenis says, still with a healthy amount of wonder. “It was like, I knew it already. I never doubted myself. I made my dream come true, because this is what any kid, when they start MMA, this is a dream come true and make it f***ing beautiful in a highlight way.
“And then a couple of months later, [PFL exec] Mike Kogan told me, ‘Yo kid, we’re going to come to Spain. You’re going to be headlining the Spain card in Madrid.’ I was like, ‘No f***ing way.’ I couldn’t even dream of that, and hearing it I was like, man, this is only because we choked Johnny Eblen out in Cape Town. If not, we never would’ve come to Spain.”
Van Steenis’ great encore performance will be a rematch against Fabian Edwards, whom he edged in a split decision victory back in 2020. That fight, which was held in Milan, Italy, fell under the Bellator banner. It was long enough ago that van Steenis expects to see a completely different fighter on Friday.
A version of Edwards closer to the one who won the 2025 PFL Middleweight Tournament.
“He’s grown a lot,” he says. “We’re both men now. Six years ago we were, let’s say we were kids at that moment in the fighting game. He’s grown a lot, but I believe I’ve grown four or five times more than he has. He’s a dangerous fighter, but I believe I’m so much better. I really do believe that. Watching all his fights, his past fights, then watching all my past fights, every fight I’ve had, I’m getting better.”
That beam returns.
“And especially with the fight against Eblen, this made me a whole different person,” he says. “I really do believe I’m in my prime.”
These days van Steenis lives and train with Mousasi and his team in Holland. Yet because his roots in Spain are so strong, there’s a welcome burden attached to his return home. Which is to say, a lot of friends and family will be there to cheer him on, and there just aren’t enough comps — or t-shirts — to go around.
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“It is going to be a little bit stressful,” he says. “I’d been living in Spain for 20 years. My whole childhood was there. And all my friends, my family are living there, so it’s going to be crazy. They’re all coming to watch the fight. I mean everybody. My friends are bringing their friends and then their friends are bringing their friends. They’re all saying, ‘We all want to wear your t-shirt collection! We want to buy t-shirts! We want to go there representing you!’ I’m like, man, I don’t have any t-shirts at the moment. But I have a lot of love to them guys that are coming to watch me fight.”
Whether it’s the glow of winning the middleweight title or the homecoming in Madrid, every fighter should have a day like Costello van Steenis. In a game that has so many cruel turns of fate, living a storybook year perhaps helps balance the ledger.
And fighting in Spain, where not even the UFC has been, cast as the A-side, right at a moment when it’s become a hotbed in MMA?
What could be better?
“It really does feel like a big deal,” he says. “I mean, winning the belt — I thought winning the belt is everything. I worked really hard for it, to be able to fight for it. But now that I’m taking one of the biggest organizations in the world to Spain, that’s like, what the f***? It’s crazy. I know it’s on me. I trained harder and I will fight harder than ever. No way am I losing in my home country after taking such a big organization to Spain.”
As for the Eblen fight, in which he snatched defeat from the proverbial jaws of victory: Would he change anything if he could?
“Well, maybe the first two rounds … they were quite boring,” he says. “But honestly, I wouldn’t change anything. I think it was perfect. It’s was like a movie.”
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