Reigning Bellator FC featherweight champion Joe Soto will face former TUF 9 cast-member Santino Defranco on Oct. 8 at a TFC (formerly Palace Fighting Championships) event.

The news comes courtesy of sources close to the champion, and was confirmed by FiveKnuckles.com with Soto himself.

Soto (7-0) breezed through Bellator FC's inaugural featherweight tournament, earning big wins over Ben Greer, tournament favorite Wilson Reis, and Yahir Reyes, en route to earning a $100,000 paycheck.

The 22-year old undefeated champion is known for his heavy hands and having a strong wrestling pedigree .  He wrestled in college at Iowa Central Community College alongside the likes of Jon Jones and Cain Velasquez. He even roomed with Jones during their freshman and sophomore years. Soto currently trains at AKA Fight Club, headed by brothers Jim and Dan Miller.

Santino DeFranco (13-4) is best known for his appearance on Spike TV's The Ultimate Fighter season 9. DeFranco fought for Team U.S., eventually losing to welterweight finalist Andre Winner in the second round of the tournament.

Bellator FC has given it's champions, who are under contract with the organization, the opportunity to take fights outside of the organization after they chose to postpone the start of their second season. They were originally scheduled to kick off the start of their sophomore effort in Oct., but instead decided to shift the start date to Jan. 2010 in order to focus on TV negotiations. Rumors have been saying that the budding organization, that already has a deal in place with ESPN Deportes (ESPN's spanish speaking channel), is moving over to ESPN or ESPN2.

Jacob Camargo and Gavin Vincent contributed to this report.