When Pro Fighters League (PFL) announced they were entering the MMA scene with a huge bankroll I got excited because I would really like to see UFC have more competition in the MMA world. When they announced that they were going to do a team-based and tournament style year-long tournament, I got more excited.
It is just too tough to take UFC on head on. They are too entrenched and have too much market share for anyone to really be able to detract from them and this IMO, is a reason why the sport suffers overall. UFC doesn't have to offer a good product because there really isn't an alternative. Although PFL wasn't going to be able to acquire the best fighters in the world, they did have some interesting concepts that would make it worth tuning in for.
Unfortunately, things started going badly for PFL almost immediately after they stated their intention for the future. Their system was a points-based tournament that took place over a long period of time and this allowed for a lot of events. No longer were we the audience just looking for a victory on a particular night, if you backed a certain fighter you needed them to do well the entire "season" in order to win on points. This was interesting as a concept, but almost right away they had problems.
It shouldn't be too much of a surprise but when someone is involved in MMA, injuries are very common. Just look at how frequently UFC has to change their roster at the last minute because someone has a stomach bug or in Conor McGregor's situation, an alleged bruised toe bone, and you can see that depending on any particular fighter to be able to make it to all of their scheduled fights in a year simply isn't going to happen.
What started as a good idea devolved into chaos, with a lot of the rankings being determined not by who was actually the best fighter, but who managed to not get too badly injured and was actually able to turn up for the fights.
This resulted in a lot of people who were initially very interested in this new promotion tuning out and just when it looked like things couldn't get any worse, in early 2023 10 of the fighters, including some champions, failed drug tests
When this happens to just ONE fighter in UFC this makes huge news, but PFL had already lost so much market share that most people didn't even know this happened.
Check out this promo from 2024. Recognize any of those people? Probably not and that is not a good thing. However, PFL has no shortage of money and a lot of the spotlight stays on them because of a partnership with none other than Jake Paul. I can't stand the guy but there is no denying that he is a marketing genius. I mean, who else has ever gate-crashed boxing and been successful in doing so?
PFL's only real allure was the fact that fights and champions were determined just like a lot of other sports in that the performance of the particular fighter during that same year determined who was going to be in the 4-person "playoffs" rather than just some board determining who is the most marketable and letting them have a go. For people like me who are disenfranchised by UFC sort of picking who they want their champion to be rather than letting it happen organically, this approach was something I welcomed. But it was just too complicated and when people would drop out, it would throw the entire thing out of whack.
While this looks simple enough, there is actually a lot more to it than this and in the end if someone in the "regular season" got a 1st round KO they would find themselves in such a wonderful position as far as the rankings were concerned that they often didn't even need to prepare for their 2nd fight in order to qualify for the playoffs. Then when the playoffs would come around, they would be more fresh than the others and well, it just wasn't fair.
Sure, I think it is a lot better than the UFC favoritism that is based on a fighter's marketability rather than ability, but there were too many holes in this system for it to remain. Plus there was also the problem of not very many people actually giving a shit about the events or the fighters themselves.
PFL, in the past week or so, announced that they are going to abandon the season format and instead just being another low-level MMA brand that does things exactly the same and UFC but with fighters you have never heard of. Because of their deep pockets and association with Jake Paul, they will likely be able to stick around for a bit longer but I would imagine it is only a matter of time before they throw in the proverbial towel on the entire thing.
What started out as what appeared to be a potential "giant killer" as far as taking on UFC is concerned, has turned into just another promotion that very few people even care about.
Since I personally have kind of fallen out of love with UFC, this is really upsetting news to me. There is no alternative at the moment and once again we see UFC in a situation where they don't actually have to innovate or improve or even pay the fighters very well, they have no competition and can do whatever they want.
Just yesterday I was looking at PFL's current list of champions and I didn't recognize any of the names other than Liz Carmouche and she would get absolutely crushed in UFC's flyweight division.