Paul Hughes officially graduated from prospect to contender with his performance at PFL: Battle of the Giants on Saturday.

In just his second fight under the PFL banner, Hughes scored a brutal knockdown in the first round over A.J. McKee before ultimately winning a split decision. While there’s something to be said about the scoring in the fight with Hughes largely controlling the action across all three rounds, he still gets the win in the biggest moment of his young career so far.

“Look what I can do! I’m a superstar,” Hughes shouted at the camera after his win. “The PFL believed in me, look at me. I’m here on the world stage. I fought one of the best guys on the planet. I doubled down on myself. Who’s done that to AJ McKee? I’ll tell you what, that was not one of my best performances.”

Hughes showed no fear facing down one of the top lightweights in Bellator as he made a statement from the very start when he was able to shrug off takedown attempts from McKee to keep the fight standing. Hughes also unloaded a huge knee trying to catch McKee as he dropped down to grab a leg but the former Bellator featherweight champion narrowly avoided a potential knockout.

In a scramble, Hughes actually ended up on top of McKee where he began raining down shots from above while defending a few up kicks coming at him from the bottom. McKee continued to roll and eventually got back to his feet but Hughes made him pay for it just before the first round ended.

With McKee backing up against the cage, Hughes unloaded a massive right hook that landed flush on the jaw. McKee dropped to the canvas just as the bell rang to end the round, potentially saving him from some follow up shots that could have earned Hughes the finish.

Following a minute long recovery between rounds, McKee was a little more reserved with his offense, although he did launch a couple of successful straight punches to get Hughes attention. In return, Hughes clipped McKee with a slick combination but a jumping knee attack backfired as he ended up slipping and falling to the ground.

McKee did his best to take advantage with his grappling but Hughes never gave him anything to work with before he ran out of time.

With five minutes remaining, McKee once again looked for the takedown as he grabbed onto the body lock and pressed Hughes against the cage. When he wasn’t able to drag the fight to the ground, Hughes broke free and really started launching combinations while McKee was looking like his gas tank was running dry.

Hughes continued to set up his strikes while McKee just couldn’t get much going as time ran out and a new star emerged in the lightweight division.

Following the win, Hughes wasted no time proposing that his third PFL fight come along with some gold on the line.

“We want to see Ireland vs. Dagestan,” Hughes shouted. “We want to see Paul Hughes vs. Usman Nurmagomedov. Let’s go.”