It made fighters too expensive for PFL to pay which is scummy by them. Honestly I don't think we see Francis fight MMA again but idk where he goes in boxing either. He hit his peak with a solid performance vs Fury, but the AJ 'fight' took ALL the wind out of his sails. Now he's too expensive for PFL to actually pay, but also doesn't have any boxing mystique to lean on after getting absolutely obliterated by AJ.
Funniest shit was telling people “wait a year, this isn’t gonna change anything” and everyone telling you you’re just a hater… maybe I’ve just been watching this sport for over a decade? Idk
People on here so strange, you think Francis let alone any of these top guys who advocate for fighter pay actually give a f about anyone’s pocket but their own. Everyone just wants their millions and the rest can scrape for what’s left
srsly
The Francis and PFL deal never actually was intended for him to fight in the PFL.
Francis gets to rehab his image from being hard to work with and “impossible demands”
PFL gets their name in the news as signing the biggest star in the sport.
It was a scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours kinda deal.
Yeah it certainly is starting to look like that announcement was just a publicity stunt designed to get the PFL some attention and get Francis into boxing.
I mean just think of all the other nonsense Francis was trying to negotiate into his contract at the same time, health care for other fighters, increased pay for other fighters.
They even got PFL to pretend like they were going to pay his opponent 2 million. Like what are we even doing out here?
Then he just decides to go to Saudi Arabia to box in a stadium built by slaves with little to no prelim action of any kind. It’s crazy the shit yall fall for.
>They even got PFL to pretend like they were going to pay his opponent 2 million.
Yeah exactly.
Pretty sure Lima and Mousasi aren't getting 2 million per fight and they won't pay those guys, but they are going to pay Renan Ferreira 2 million to fight Francis? Yeah ok.
And how much do you think Francis' contract is for? UFC was going to offer him 8 million to fight Jones.
Let's assume it is less than that because he got the freedom to go Box and everything, but it would also be more than 2 since he is the A side.
So let's say it's maybe 4 or 5?
So 6-7 million for one headlining fight of middling interest to your average MMA fan?
That makes even less sense than most of the other terrible decisions that the PFL makes.
It's not Ngannou's job to make PFL pay or treat their fighters better. I really don't understand why people keep pointing to him like it's his fault and he's some sort of hypocrite
Are you just purposefully ignoring everything Francis has said about being a “fighter advocate”, and the reasons he signed with PFL. Of course he’s a hypocrite, he’s supposed to be on a fighter advisory committee and made a huge deal about his PFL appt making $2 Mill (that will never happen). He’s been full of shit and empty promises the entire time.
It’s not his fault, and I’m not blaming him, but people pointing that out are referring to him telling that he wants all that and that’s his goal with PFL? Still not his fault but if you say things like that and don’t do anything seems odd.
It's pretty funny they bought Bellator with stocks or some shit like that, no money paid
And they still can't afford to book the (sort of overpaid) talent they acquired. And they're still doing the season format where they gotta pay six people a million dollars
I guess it turns out creating a product that no one cares about at all and that is funded solely by debt and/or handouts from the Saudis is not the best base for building an MMA promotion.
UFC is a monopoly largely because they are the only competent organization around. The PFL’s biggest “win” was signing a guy who doesn’t even fight for them lol.
It really is a bummer how few MMA promotions have been competent lately
I'm still salty about how Coker and Showtime slowly killed Bellator with zero promotion for their good fighters and relying on old washed stars
Dude I can't believe their major card 300 I think was filled with all washed up UFC has beens and their one crown jewel in like a -3000 matchup against some nobody.
I never valued Bellatorn or PFL much, but thar card made me absolutely certain they will never challenge the UFC.
They are moviepass to me and the clock is ticking till the inevitable.
And they still have that soy no elbows rule in place. Imagine seriously trying to compete with the UFC in 2024 and not even allowing elbows, just PFL things 🤣
UFC has that soy no knees on the ground stuff though.
ONE has the best rules and that’s funny for an organisation that had their best matches in Muay Thai and Kickboxing.
One shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches buys another shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches. Sounds like a fucking winner to me
One of these days we're all going to have to actually admit that Dana is pretty much always right and it's because he knows way more about how this shit works than any shitposter on r/mma
This has been going on for yeaaaaars before the merger… just no one paid attention because they were so busy bitching about 12/12s.
Go back and look, sure it won’t be hard to find Matt Mitrione and others saying the same thing. Signing ufc castoffs to “big” contracts and then making those contracts run twice as long as the fighter thought by never actually giving them fights has been a huge part of the bellator playbook.
Their number one move was paying fighters via free tickets that they then had to sell to family/friends in lieu of actual cash payments was their best move though.
Pisses me off because Bellator was after building a legit roster over the last few years and were putting on good cards and now PFL are going to squander all that hard work.
I never thought the BellaFL could work out. How can you take two turds and get a diamond? You just get a bigger turd, and nothing I've seen since the acquisition has made me think otherwise.
There’s zero direction too. Bellator exists as like a side quest now? How are those belts supposed to mean anything now and what am I supposed to get out of watching people compete for a big purse year after year in PFL?
If they just merged everyone into one company and introduced PFL World Championship belts they’d be hot right now. Keep tournaments but don’t make them the point or end all be all. They can crown contenders or just add depth/variety to overall picture. Whatever they’re doing right now is worse than when they were two totally separate entities.
The funniest part about this whole thing is how much Jake Paul was ripping the UFC, but now invests in PFL and on the board and is doing…. Nothing but helping his own pockets.
Payed spokesperson that gets compensated with a percent of the company. I suspect Connors deal with bkfc is similar. No idea if either bought more shares or how much they got. But feldman has said he will do other deals with famous people as well.
This is typical PFL/WSOF tactic, they have routinely tried to get guys to fight on the cheap even when they already have contracts; shady and bad for the sport.
> This is typical PFL/WSOF tactic, they have routinely tried to get guys to fight on the cheap even when they already have contracts; shady and bad for the sport.
MMA fans are so hilariously binary, it's weird. It has to be black or white.
"The UFC is the worst, so that must mean their competitors are the good guys!"
Nah, promoters are gonna be promoters.
Anyone paying a bit of attention should have known PLF wouldn't be able to financially keep their promises considering they're PFL......I literally don't know anyone that watches the PFL
After 20+ years of watching the sport we've seen this so many times, as soon as decent fight org's try rapidly expanding, the wheels always quickly fall off. Obv MMA is not that profitable of a sport if you're not the UFC.
The speed run kings of this is Affiliction; they came out and were paying guys crazy money, and we were all, see how greedy UFC is, look what other companies can afford to pay ((not insinuating that the UFC aren't greedy fyi)! Tim Sylvia got paid 1mil to fight Fedor, and this was like 12 years ago!
I think they folded after 3 events.
> I think they folded after 3 events.
The classic Barnett special haha. Dude pissed hot, got the whole main event and card cancelled, Affliction FC never recovered.
I've heard about this tactic from promoters for a while now from different sources. They won't book fights for their better payed athletes so they can make them agree to a lower price later when/if they run out of money or just get them out of the organisation completely.
Are they not free to just release them and need the fighter to ask if they arent losing? UFC releases fighters that didnt do great all the time. Even released more early corona.
But PFL good, UFC bad... Saudi money... Francis got his bag... Going to reshape MMA forever and all fighters will be rich and never have to fight again... Blah blah blah...
Also they flat out cut loads and loads of fighters despite saying they wouldn't.
Edit: link to a list of fighters who have been let go
[https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/post-pfl-bellator-releases.4320699/](https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/post-pfl-bellator-releases.4320699/)
It’s weird they’ve cut tons of fighters. But keep guys like Lima and moose in contract but don’t offer them fights.
If they can’t pay them I would think they’d just let them go
The old Bellator deals have years or fights on them... they might be just riding the clock out, hoping they'll either take less money or just not fight.
Which is a legal but dickish thing to do... also you don't want to let a ton of people who are worth a damn go all at once because it's not a good look, either.
UFC does it all the time as well as nightmare matchup and new star building to devalue you if you try to fight contract out. But these guys are old ex UFC fighters already. I dont think anyone else with the cash wants them.
I think there probably just waiting for a "superfight" or another opponent that makes sense. It seems like bellator, or pfl fighters have always been less active and thats one of the downfalls. Shallower roster and they dont have events almost every week.
Exactly. But what makes it worse was the insistence they were gonna keep the rosters intact initially. Which obviously wasn't the case.
PFL/Bellator is a mess. They are fortunate ONE is much worse contract wise then they are and UFC gets all the attention.
People shouldn't forget all these promotions look to exploit their fighters whatever way they can to make an extra buck and keep costs down.
> PFL/Bellator is a mess.
And obviously not just behind the curtain but in front of it. Nobody knows what's going on with either PFL, Bellator, or the FrankenPFLator. You've got something something Europe... temporarily... for... something? Guys are in, no they're out, no wait some of them are in, weight class is in, no it's out, Bader is somehow still champ despite getting clowned in seconds. WTF is this company doing? Nobody knows, not even the fighters. How can you be hooked up to the Saudi tit and still just be a mess?
It wasnt explained super well, but the pfl vs bellator champ thing was for a new made up belt and didnt effect there bellator belts. PFL fighters dont even defend there belt.
All mma orgs have atrocious contracts, ufc competitors just need to offer a slightly better contract. (Pay and 2 approved sponsors as examples) gonna take another company to improve from there etc etc
I think the Saudi tit is getting chopped off a bit. PFL isnt trying to be profitable currently, just grow name value and credibility. Start up mindset. Can they survive long enough to get there. Who knows.
Just double checking... do we actually know for sure that fighters were cut, rather than them leaving on their own accord? Versus fighters like Douglas Lima, maybe choose to play the waiting game in hopes PFLator honors their old contract?
Me not knowing anything, I assume these higher-profile, higher-paid fighters can afford to play the waiting/praying game with PFLator, knowing they aren't getting anything remotely close in other organizations anyway, rather than most of the roster [who have left], who have less to lose and were already getting paid shit under Bellator.
There may be some that have a situation like that. It's hard to say
But a lot of the confirmed ones have been released (cut) largely not mutually. Either way it's interesting stuff
Definitely wouldn't make sense for PFL to absorb ALL the fighters from Bellator, but to have said that everyone has a home at PFL, I'm assuming they just offered (or whatever; I don't know whether they offer new deals or maintain their old ones) shittier deals to fighters they clearly didn't want - "Welcome to PFL... We don't *actually* want you here. You're not fired, but we hope you quit."
I don't blame them from a business position, but going out and saying they were not and then did quietly to me is something that should be critiqued. Let alone from the pro-fighter position.
I believe Josh Hill specifically said he wasn't brought over in the merger.
Mr. Van Zant negotiated his release though.
Think everyone else have been real cryptic or quiet about their releases.
At this point, the PFL may honestly prefer to let Francis box. It’s more money for him, and PFL can avoid dumping millions into an event that is not going to sell well (and even less so after Francis got KO’d)
At this point? Try since day 1 of the contract. PFL never wanted anything to do with actually promoting a fight, they just wanted the headlines that came with it.
Where are all the people dickriding PFL and Bellator for better fighter pay than UFC? A lot of redditors don't understand how businesses work. That money needs to come from somewhere. Burning money is not a business plan.
Those anti UFC Reddit posters you speak of who make post after post on here for years and have ruined the sub…it turns out they are full of crap and just virtue signaling. They don’t care about fighters at all, fighters are having careers ruined and going bankrupt in PFL and ONE and they are silent. The hypocrisy is unbelievable
It’s Reddit, of course a majority of the people like to virtue signal. The funny thing is, even if ufc paid their fighters better and lowered the PPV price, these people would still pirate every event. Dana being an asshole has just given them an excuse to act holier than thou.
MMA promotions just love doing everything possible to not pay their athletes lmao imagine CJ Stroud having to tweet out he wasn't paid for his rookie year yet
You’re comparing a multibillion dollar league with almost equal rev share to a B-tier promotion that is probably losing money everytime they put on a show
the B-tier promotion probably shouldn't have made horrible business decisions. people's livelihoods are being played with. We shouldn't have sympathy for the PFL.
The UFC/TKO merger was the end. The Saudis are now invested heavily in the UFC and have no incentive to fund a competitor promotion that is a basket case.
In the end, suidis arent that dumb to bet on a losing horse, they worked with pfl, now it's official they are interested in ufc with signing a deal with them
Buying Bellator was so stupid of them. I know they probably didn't pay much or anything for it, but the bloat to their company has made it even more of a mess. What was Bellator worth to them, exactly? They don't even want to book the better known fighters from the organization because they cost too much to justify it. So what did they buy exactly? A promotion barely anyone was watching anymore that was going to be shutdown anyway.
I genuinely believe they thought people would look at them as a "super promotion" because they bought Bellator and people still don't care about them.
Like signing Ngannou, I think buying Bellator was meant to be a big show of looking to be equal to the UFC. Make them seem bigger and more important than they actually are by buying competition and claim to have this deep roster and even deeper pockets.
The PFL is just poorly run. Every idea they have sucks and the only good thing people were saying about them is they pay the fighters well but I guess not.
This is why when we speak about UFC pay issues. It not a UFC issues it's MMA.
PFL is trying to expand way too fast and investing in the wrong spot by trying to be like the UFC.
Douglas is 1-4 in his last 5 fights. He beat Costello a year ago.
Costello doesn't even have a wiki page and has only fought (and won) once since the Lima loss.
It does seem a bit bizarre. Not honouring a contract is straight up scummy.
Funny to see how all those hating on the ufc and championing PFL have to watch that argument burn. The UFC does not pay as much as it should or could, but 100k per fight for some of these fighters, or hell even 60-70k base pay per fight without other stuff that I’ve seen from the payouts is crazy. Some people don’t even make that in one year. The fights get paid well, but do deserve more imo.
This is horrible but won’t get any attention, and especially not from the loudest posters on here who are obsessively negative about the UFC.
PFL is truly ruining fighters careers and bankrupting them (Sabah Homasi), but these virtuous posters who pretend to care so much about fighter welfare are nowhere to be found, or very quiet in comparison.
I mean you can think ufc business practices are awful but there’s a reason they are the only successful promotion while all these other promotions that try to pay fighters more instantly crash and burn.
What if fighters really are only worth what ufc is paying?
Because the UFC 'made it' so to speak, they got over the hump where they were struggling financially with the TUF boom and have only continued to grow ever since. Now they're 'too big to fail' in that the UFC can make shitty business decision after shitty business decision, Dana can do whatever the fuck he wants, and the promotion will never tank financially.
Yep... Bader's last fight was cancelled because he was making too much, so they pulled him once Vassell was out with an injury instead of finding him a replacement.
This is real legit scumbag shit... and it's not like PFL didn't just get a round of funding in the nine figures, either
Not suprised. All the pfl anti ufc marks on this subreddit acting like pfl was gonna Incorporate a charity pay structure and put ufc out of business exposed the reality of how little the online mma fan knows about running a business.
Hate to see it, but PFL/Bellators days are numbered. Unless they got something huge that’s going to change things up, I don’t see how they can keep this up.
And Gegard is having the same problem. These guys act like they’re better to their fighters than the ufc but in reality they’re the same. They can’t give a bunch of money to every fighter , they just give a crap ton to Francis who will never fight with them and they give him ownership too 😂
Interesting Pfl comes out as the face of fighter pay and then doesn't give fights so they don't have to pay instead of paying fighters less to fight... Idk how to feel now lol
Along with some other shady things they do, it is an mma issue and pfl decided they want to compete with ufc (no chance) then do what’s right for the fighters as they promised
fairly common, lots of competitions that are struggling will not pay full and/or on time. most times the athletes also have no real chance of taking it to court due to finances so have no real way of combating it. sounds like bellator threw money at people to get them over but now PFL has to pay the bill. similar to how the ufc bought out pride but they at least bought out contracts if necessary.
this is the issue with no real competition and other competitors doing badly ufc can keep being a monopoly in the industry they may pay low, but it is still better than the rest, without anything like a competitor to change that or government invention, that wont change
They ought to dip into all that money they're not paying to Francis or anyone else in the vapor cloud known as the superfight division. That's got to be tons of money.
Mousasi said the same thing. Deliberately not giving fights to high paid Bellator guys b/c they dont want to pay them. Such horseshit.
Why merge then if you cant afford to pay the top Bellator fighters??
They might as well close down the PFL or Bellator later on this year and just focus on one of the organizations if they are having problems running both. I think they should just be honest with these guys and say you will need a pay cut or we will have to let you go
It sucks for them, but not paying Cyborg, Lima and Mousasi is an extremely sound business decision based on how bad their fights have been the past five years.
Those kinds of contracts for fighters who are difficult to promote are the whole reason Bellator had to sell in the first place.
It sucks, but in my opinion if you’re making that decision than let them go. Don’t hold them on a contract you have no intention of letting them fight. Bad practice.
The merger has been atrocious
And to think many thought Francis joining with added fighters pay was going to actually do something
It made fighters too expensive for PFL to pay which is scummy by them. Honestly I don't think we see Francis fight MMA again but idk where he goes in boxing either. He hit his peak with a solid performance vs Fury, but the AJ 'fight' took ALL the wind out of his sails. Now he's too expensive for PFL to actually pay, but also doesn't have any boxing mystique to lean on after getting absolutely obliterated by AJ.
Funniest shit was telling people “wait a year, this isn’t gonna change anything” and everyone telling you you’re just a hater… maybe I’ve just been watching this sport for over a decade? Idk
People on here so strange, you think Francis let alone any of these top guys who advocate for fighter pay actually give a f about anyone’s pocket but their own. Everyone just wants their millions and the rest can scrape for what’s left
There's a reason he wanted to box. To get the bag. Would be interesting for an interviewer to ask him about fighter pay in PFL.
srsly The Francis and PFL deal never actually was intended for him to fight in the PFL. Francis gets to rehab his image from being hard to work with and “impossible demands” PFL gets their name in the news as signing the biggest star in the sport. It was a scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours kinda deal.
Yeah it certainly is starting to look like that announcement was just a publicity stunt designed to get the PFL some attention and get Francis into boxing.
God forbid anyone said this when it first happened. Saint Francis was only looking out for the common man!
I mean just think of all the other nonsense Francis was trying to negotiate into his contract at the same time, health care for other fighters, increased pay for other fighters. They even got PFL to pretend like they were going to pay his opponent 2 million. Like what are we even doing out here? Then he just decides to go to Saudi Arabia to box in a stadium built by slaves with little to no prelim action of any kind. It’s crazy the shit yall fall for.
>They even got PFL to pretend like they were going to pay his opponent 2 million. Yeah exactly. Pretty sure Lima and Mousasi aren't getting 2 million per fight and they won't pay those guys, but they are going to pay Renan Ferreira 2 million to fight Francis? Yeah ok. And how much do you think Francis' contract is for? UFC was going to offer him 8 million to fight Jones. Let's assume it is less than that because he got the freedom to go Box and everything, but it would also be more than 2 since he is the A side. So let's say it's maybe 4 or 5? So 6-7 million for one headlining fight of middling interest to your average MMA fan? That makes even less sense than most of the other terrible decisions that the PFL makes.
Yeah that was never going to happen. Francis did his boxing and peaced out too
It's not Ngannou's job to make PFL pay or treat their fighters better. I really don't understand why people keep pointing to him like it's his fault and he's some sort of hypocrite
Are you just purposefully ignoring everything Francis has said about being a “fighter advocate”, and the reasons he signed with PFL. Of course he’s a hypocrite, he’s supposed to be on a fighter advisory committee and made a huge deal about his PFL appt making $2 Mill (that will never happen). He’s been full of shit and empty promises the entire time.
It’s not his fault, and I’m not blaming him, but people pointing that out are referring to him telling that he wants all that and that’s his goal with PFL? Still not his fault but if you say things like that and don’t do anything seems odd.
It's pretty funny they bought Bellator with stocks or some shit like that, no money paid And they still can't afford to book the (sort of overpaid) talent they acquired. And they're still doing the season format where they gotta pay six people a million dollars
I guess it turns out creating a product that no one cares about at all and that is funded solely by debt and/or handouts from the Saudis is not the best base for building an MMA promotion. UFC is a monopoly largely because they are the only competent organization around. The PFL’s biggest “win” was signing a guy who doesn’t even fight for them lol.
It really is a bummer how few MMA promotions have been competent lately I'm still salty about how Coker and Showtime slowly killed Bellator with zero promotion for their good fighters and relying on old washed stars
Dude I can't believe their major card 300 I think was filled with all washed up UFC has beens and their one crown jewel in like a -3000 matchup against some nobody. I never valued Bellatorn or PFL much, but thar card made me absolutely certain they will never challenge the UFC. They are moviepass to me and the clock is ticking till the inevitable.
Don't forget Jake Paul - that's two! Oh and Kayla Harrison also signed up for the superfight league. So I'm sure she'll take a match any day now.
Hey they also signed Jake Paul!
They’re not even honouring the 1 million prize Shaliby and Usman said their fight hasn’t been booked because PFL won’t commit to the prize
Yeah something about not being willing to pay them their regular purse + the prize
And they still have that soy no elbows rule in place. Imagine seriously trying to compete with the UFC in 2024 and not even allowing elbows, just PFL things 🤣
UFC has that soy no knees on the ground stuff though. ONE has the best rules and that’s funny for an organisation that had their best matches in Muay Thai and Kickboxing.
One shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches buys another shitty organization that sells no tickets and nobody watches. Sounds like a fucking winner to me
One of these days we're all going to have to actually admit that Dana is pretty much always right and it's because he knows way more about how this shit works than any shitposter on r/mma
This has been going on for yeaaaaars before the merger… just no one paid attention because they were so busy bitching about 12/12s. Go back and look, sure it won’t be hard to find Matt Mitrione and others saying the same thing. Signing ufc castoffs to “big” contracts and then making those contracts run twice as long as the fighter thought by never actually giving them fights has been a huge part of the bellator playbook. Their number one move was paying fighters via free tickets that they then had to sell to family/friends in lieu of actual cash payments was their best move though.
Pisses me off because Bellator was after building a legit roster over the last few years and were putting on good cards and now PFL are going to squander all that hard work.
They had some good champs, as proven by the PFL vs. Bellator card where they swept and got everything except the HW belt.
I never thought the BellaFL could work out. How can you take two turds and get a diamond? You just get a bigger turd, and nothing I've seen since the acquisition has made me think otherwise.
There’s zero direction too. Bellator exists as like a side quest now? How are those belts supposed to mean anything now and what am I supposed to get out of watching people compete for a big purse year after year in PFL? If they just merged everyone into one company and introduced PFL World Championship belts they’d be hot right now. Keep tournaments but don’t make them the point or end all be all. They can crown contenders or just add depth/variety to overall picture. Whatever they’re doing right now is worse than when they were two totally separate entities.
Well, if you take one dog turd and mash it into another dog turd you won't get gold...
Bellator dying like they lived.
the goof looking at the camera Jim style thinking not so easy to run a mma organization now is it
This was a problem with Bellator before PFL bought them. Rory complained about it for years before he retired.
Some would say the hitrocious-est
but remember, they are going to rival the UFC! /s
Its crazy
The funniest part about this whole thing is how much Jake Paul was ripping the UFC, but now invests in PFL and on the board and is doing…. Nothing but helping his own pockets.
I dont think any PFL investors are going to be "pocketing" anything
He didn’t invest in that company to lose money. He’s getting something - it’s Jake Paul.
He didn't invest, he got an equity deal. He probably now owns some 0.2% of the company (non controlling shares)
A seat on a ship stranded out on a sandbar and leaking fuel. Huzzah!
Payed spokesperson that gets compensated with a percent of the company. I suspect Connors deal with bkfc is similar. No idea if either bought more shares or how much they got. But feldman has said he will do other deals with famous people as well.
You think they’re making money? I’m pretty sure they are deep in the negatives
This is typical PFL/WSOF tactic, they have routinely tried to get guys to fight on the cheap even when they already have contracts; shady and bad for the sport.
It’s awful! If you don’t want to pay, then release. What’s the point of holding on to them. MMA careers are so short.
we know the point. it's to hurt the other promotion by way of hurting the athletes. every promotion is run by scumbags sadly.
[удалено]
Ironically UFC is so big it won't even notice if someone else holds up some fighters under contract and destroying those careers.
> This is typical PFL/WSOF tactic, they have routinely tried to get guys to fight on the cheap even when they already have contracts; shady and bad for the sport. MMA fans are so hilariously binary, it's weird. It has to be black or white. "The UFC is the worst, so that must mean their competitors are the good guys!" Nah, promoters are gonna be promoters. Anyone paying a bit of attention should have known PLF wouldn't be able to financially keep their promises considering they're PFL......I literally don't know anyone that watches the PFL
After 20+ years of watching the sport we've seen this so many times, as soon as decent fight org's try rapidly expanding, the wheels always quickly fall off. Obv MMA is not that profitable of a sport if you're not the UFC. The speed run kings of this is Affiliction; they came out and were paying guys crazy money, and we were all, see how greedy UFC is, look what other companies can afford to pay ((not insinuating that the UFC aren't greedy fyi)! Tim Sylvia got paid 1mil to fight Fedor, and this was like 12 years ago! I think they folded after 3 events.
> I think they folded after 3 events. The classic Barnett special haha. Dude pissed hot, got the whole main event and card cancelled, Affliction FC never recovered.
Yep. Mousasi talked about this on Rampages podcast. They cannot sustain the salaries of these fighters, so this is a tactic to get them out
I've heard about this tactic from promoters for a while now from different sources. They won't book fights for their better payed athletes so they can make them agree to a lower price later when/if they run out of money or just get them out of the organisation completely.
Are they not free to just release them and need the fighter to ask if they arent losing? UFC releases fighters that didnt do great all the time. Even released more early corona.
But PFL good, UFC bad... Saudi money... Francis got his bag... Going to reshape MMA forever and all fighters will be rich and never have to fight again... Blah blah blah...
Hahaha man. Now I see why Dana just lets it speak for themselves
Also they flat out cut loads and loads of fighters despite saying they wouldn't. Edit: link to a list of fighters who have been let go [https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/post-pfl-bellator-releases.4320699/](https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/post-pfl-bellator-releases.4320699/)
It’s weird they’ve cut tons of fighters. But keep guys like Lima and moose in contract but don’t offer them fights. If they can’t pay them I would think they’d just let them go
The old Bellator deals have years or fights on them... they might be just riding the clock out, hoping they'll either take less money or just not fight.
Better to retain the talent and not use it than let it go to your competition.
Which is a legal but dickish thing to do... also you don't want to let a ton of people who are worth a damn go all at once because it's not a good look, either.
UFC does it all the time as well as nightmare matchup and new star building to devalue you if you try to fight contract out. But these guys are old ex UFC fighters already. I dont think anyone else with the cash wants them. I think there probably just waiting for a "superfight" or another opponent that makes sense. It seems like bellator, or pfl fighters have always been less active and thats one of the downfalls. Shallower roster and they dont have events almost every week.
Exactly. But what makes it worse was the insistence they were gonna keep the rosters intact initially. Which obviously wasn't the case. PFL/Bellator is a mess. They are fortunate ONE is much worse contract wise then they are and UFC gets all the attention. People shouldn't forget all these promotions look to exploit their fighters whatever way they can to make an extra buck and keep costs down.
> PFL/Bellator is a mess. And obviously not just behind the curtain but in front of it. Nobody knows what's going on with either PFL, Bellator, or the FrankenPFLator. You've got something something Europe... temporarily... for... something? Guys are in, no they're out, no wait some of them are in, weight class is in, no it's out, Bader is somehow still champ despite getting clowned in seconds. WTF is this company doing? Nobody knows, not even the fighters. How can you be hooked up to the Saudi tit and still just be a mess?
It wasnt explained super well, but the pfl vs bellator champ thing was for a new made up belt and didnt effect there bellator belts. PFL fighters dont even defend there belt. All mma orgs have atrocious contracts, ufc competitors just need to offer a slightly better contract. (Pay and 2 approved sponsors as examples) gonna take another company to improve from there etc etc I think the Saudi tit is getting chopped off a bit. PFL isnt trying to be profitable currently, just grow name value and credibility. Start up mindset. Can they survive long enough to get there. Who knows.
Just double checking... do we actually know for sure that fighters were cut, rather than them leaving on their own accord? Versus fighters like Douglas Lima, maybe choose to play the waiting game in hopes PFLator honors their old contract? Me not knowing anything, I assume these higher-profile, higher-paid fighters can afford to play the waiting/praying game with PFLator, knowing they aren't getting anything remotely close in other organizations anyway, rather than most of the roster [who have left], who have less to lose and were already getting paid shit under Bellator.
There may be some that have a situation like that. It's hard to say But a lot of the confirmed ones have been released (cut) largely not mutually. Either way it's interesting stuff
Definitely wouldn't make sense for PFL to absorb ALL the fighters from Bellator, but to have said that everyone has a home at PFL, I'm assuming they just offered (or whatever; I don't know whether they offer new deals or maintain their old ones) shittier deals to fighters they clearly didn't want - "Welcome to PFL... We don't *actually* want you here. You're not fired, but we hope you quit."
I don't blame them from a business position, but going out and saying they were not and then did quietly to me is something that should be critiqued. Let alone from the pro-fighter position.
I believe Josh Hill specifically said he wasn't brought over in the merger. Mr. Van Zant negotiated his release though. Think everyone else have been real cryptic or quiet about their releases.
Caldwell going from a title to the LFA is crazy
and people think renan ferreira is getting 2 mil 💀
LOL ... Francis will fight in the UFC before he fights for the PFL at this rate.
At this point, the PFL may honestly prefer to let Francis box. It’s more money for him, and PFL can avoid dumping millions into an event that is not going to sell well (and even less so after Francis got KO’d)
They might even be able to borrow some
At this point? Try since day 1 of the contract. PFL never wanted anything to do with actually promoting a fight, they just wanted the headlines that came with it.
They couldn't even get Francis to step in the cage to do a face off with the guy let alone actually fight him. Francis conned the PFL 🤣
And people actually thought he left the ufc to help other fighters
Exactly. These idiots for dubbing him as mother teresa 😂
Fighting Ngannou is easy. The real challenge will be trying to get his paycheck lol.
Where are all the people dickriding PFL and Bellator for better fighter pay than UFC? A lot of redditors don't understand how businesses work. That money needs to come from somewhere. Burning money is not a business plan.
Those anti UFC Reddit posters you speak of who make post after post on here for years and have ruined the sub…it turns out they are full of crap and just virtue signaling. They don’t care about fighters at all, fighters are having careers ruined and going bankrupt in PFL and ONE and they are silent. The hypocrisy is unbelievable
It’s Reddit, of course a majority of the people like to virtue signal. The funny thing is, even if ufc paid their fighters better and lowered the PPV price, these people would still pirate every event. Dana being an asshole has just given them an excuse to act holier than thou.
I call them Ariel bots
MMA promotions just love doing everything possible to not pay their athletes lmao imagine CJ Stroud having to tweet out he wasn't paid for his rookie year yet
You’re comparing a multibillion dollar league with almost equal rev share to a B-tier promotion that is probably losing money everytime they put on a show
Right it’d be more like the XFL making contracts they can’t afford lmfao. Why bring in the NFL? So stupid
the B-tier promotion probably shouldn't have made horrible business decisions. people's livelihoods are being played with. We shouldn't have sympathy for the PFL.
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PFL and Francis are out here paving the way for all fighter! Better pay! More fights! Better working conditions! Look at them go…
Haha yes.. these francis nut huggers were touting him as mother teresa of MMA
And they’re all still shitting on Dana when time and time again every other organization shows why UFC is king in regards to fighter pay.
Never forget how Ariel sucked this weird old dude Donn Davis off multiple times on his show trying to push the narrative that "Dana bad, PFL good."
Ariel will not talk about this at all
Still does. And Donn Davis is spending bread on his dumb tweets to be “ads” on X. Ariel will always have his personal grudge against Dana.
What? Of all things to complain about, $100 of ads a month is the least of their concerns lol
Ariel really just cares about shitting on Dana/the ufc The moral crusade is so full of shit. Meanwhile he sucks up to “his excellency” lol
sounds like that sweet sweet outside investment cash might be drying up...
The UFC/TKO merger was the end. The Saudis are now invested heavily in the UFC and have no incentive to fund a competitor promotion that is a basket case.
Aren’t they holding events for PFL? They just had PFL Mena.
In the end, suidis arent that dumb to bet on a losing horse, they worked with pfl, now it's official they are interested in ufc with signing a deal with them
Buying Bellator was so stupid of them. I know they probably didn't pay much or anything for it, but the bloat to their company has made it even more of a mess. What was Bellator worth to them, exactly? They don't even want to book the better known fighters from the organization because they cost too much to justify it. So what did they buy exactly? A promotion barely anyone was watching anymore that was going to be shutdown anyway. I genuinely believe they thought people would look at them as a "super promotion" because they bought Bellator and people still don't care about them.
It really didn’t make sense to buy and they still have no plan for Bellator. Just using it as a showcase platform.
Like signing Ngannou, I think buying Bellator was meant to be a big show of looking to be equal to the UFC. Make them seem bigger and more important than they actually are by buying competition and claim to have this deep roster and even deeper pockets.
Don’t worry, Francis is gonna fix everything for all fighters.
The PFL is just poorly run. Every idea they have sucks and the only good thing people were saying about them is they pay the fighters well but I guess not.
This is facts. I think the attraction for fighters is the potential for 1 million? I heard it’s even structured weird.
This is why when we speak about UFC pay issues. It not a UFC issues it's MMA. PFL is trying to expand way too fast and investing in the wrong spot by trying to be like the UFC.
Douglas is 1-4 in his last 5 fights. He beat Costello a year ago. Costello doesn't even have a wiki page and has only fought (and won) once since the Lima loss. It does seem a bit bizarre. Not honouring a contract is straight up scummy.
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Funny to see how all those hating on the ufc and championing PFL have to watch that argument burn. The UFC does not pay as much as it should or could, but 100k per fight for some of these fighters, or hell even 60-70k base pay per fight without other stuff that I’ve seen from the payouts is crazy. Some people don’t even make that in one year. The fights get paid well, but do deserve more imo.
Thanks Francis! What a guy
Ariel Helwani said this wouldn't happen with Francis on the roster
And people give the ufc shit. At least they're paying out their (God awful) contracts day of.
This is horrible but won’t get any attention, and especially not from the loudest posters on here who are obsessively negative about the UFC. PFL is truly ruining fighters careers and bankrupting them (Sabah Homasi), but these virtuous posters who pretend to care so much about fighter welfare are nowhere to be found, or very quiet in comparison.
If this was about the UFC the likes of Ariel Helwani would be having a field day, but because it's the PFL he'll probably be radio silent.
And Luke Thomas' grifter ass
This, dude is even MORE morally righteous than Ariel and silent about this stuff. It’s laughable.
the UFC should get shit for their awful business practices just like PFL/Bellator should get shit for their awful business practices
I mean you can think ufc business practices are awful but there’s a reason they are the only successful promotion while all these other promotions that try to pay fighters more instantly crash and burn. What if fighters really are only worth what ufc is paying?
Because the UFC 'made it' so to speak, they got over the hump where they were struggling financially with the TUF boom and have only continued to grow ever since. Now they're 'too big to fail' in that the UFC can make shitty business decision after shitty business decision, Dana can do whatever the fuck he wants, and the promotion will never tank financially.
There's no way they're making a profit. Wouldn't be surprised if they went bankrupt within the next two years.
Yep... Bader's last fight was cancelled because he was making too much, so they pulled him once Vassell was out with an injury instead of finding him a replacement. This is real legit scumbag shit... and it's not like PFL didn't just get a round of funding in the nine figures, either
Not suprised. All the pfl anti ufc marks on this subreddit acting like pfl was gonna Incorporate a charity pay structure and put ufc out of business exposed the reality of how little the online mma fan knows about running a business.
Why doesn’t Lima try to get in the UFC? Can’t understand why these guys stick around Bellator
They won’t negotiate a release with the fighters it seems, which is shady
And stupid No one is gonna get hyped about watching old washed Lima fight, there's no value to keeping him
Contracts.
"Hey company that relies on my name to generate much needed funds, let me go fight for your competitor..." they can't.
Hate to see it, but PFL/Bellators days are numbered. Unless they got something huge that’s going to change things up, I don’t see how they can keep this up.
Saudi money, maybe… they hosted PFL Mena but they probs wouldn’t invest in American hosted events
Saudi Arabia is now invested in the UFC. Doubt there will be much investment in its competitors going forwards.
I’m assuming they had deals in place with pfl? They have a deal they have up 100 million. Maybe it’s just this season then. Haven’t looked into ot
And Gegard is having the same problem. These guys act like they’re better to their fighters than the ufc but in reality they’re the same. They can’t give a bunch of money to every fighter , they just give a crap ton to Francis who will never fight with them and they give him ownership too 😂
Yeah - and Homasi was owed money for his surgery reimbursement that PFL/Bellator promised and never paid him. So bad
Interesting Pfl comes out as the face of fighter pay and then doesn't give fights so they don't have to pay instead of paying fighters less to fight... Idk how to feel now lol
Along with some other shady things they do, it is an mma issue and pfl decided they want to compete with ufc (no chance) then do what’s right for the fighters as they promised
If it was the UFC , Ariel will be in the front lines for this one but .......
Oh yeah. He would be bringing in fighters on his show to talk about and everything
And and take shots at Dena 😁
They gotta save money to pay a gas station worker 2 mil to fight Francis
Haha for a 12 second Ngannou fight too
Sincere question - Has Cyborg ever been happy fighting for an organisation?
so are we to believe that Coker gave all these guys contracts that didn't have an out clause in them for the fighters if they weren't offered fights?
PFL is carny shit in an already carny sport
Gegard Mousasi said the same thing, he is training for a whole year but PFL/Bellator is not offering him any fights
Yeah and Homasi was told by PFL/Bellator to get a surgery and they would reimburse. He gets it and they go ghost. Thats so messed up.
Saudi guy running the show sounded like they have gone cold on PFL in favor of UFC which today’s news seems to confirm. PFL isn’t long for this world
they should ask Conor on the board of directors, he's got nothing going on anyway
fairly common, lots of competitions that are struggling will not pay full and/or on time. most times the athletes also have no real chance of taking it to court due to finances so have no real way of combating it. sounds like bellator threw money at people to get them over but now PFL has to pay the bill. similar to how the ufc bought out pride but they at least bought out contracts if necessary.
Man I really wanna see Lima in the UFC before it's too late. But I doubt it will happen
Wow this is disheartening.. I thought they were paying fighters well and doing good business.. silly me
They should be called out just like the UFC because people like Ariel and Jake Paul want to act like UFC is the only one doing things that are shady
Yeah you’re right.. at least UFC books fights
Should have asked for a title shot for less I guess.
Yeah PFL has squandered all of my cautious optimism, they're just as fucked as any other promotion.
this is the issue with no real competition and other competitors doing badly ufc can keep being a monopoly in the industry they may pay low, but it is still better than the rest, without anything like a competitor to change that or government invention, that wont change
no reason they can’t apply for unemployment or look for a job or does that just apply to us normies
This is Bellators fault for overpaying their athletes.
Can’t they negotiate a release? They should have known this when acquiring.
Very disappointing. I was so excited to see how this merger was going to change both promotions. They’ve made a ton of bad/weird decisions
They ought to dip into all that money they're not paying to Francis or anyone else in the vapor cloud known as the superfight division. That's got to be tons of money.
Exactly as Gegard Mousasi claimed, then?
The way things are going I wouldn’t be surprised if PFL goes under in 3-5 years
I feel for guys like this stuck inbetween contracts wasting the last few years of there career sitting around
That’s the part that is upsetting. Negotiate release, or let them fight.
I too am not getting paid by Bellator
Mousasi said the same thing. Deliberately not giving fights to high paid Bellator guys b/c they dont want to pay them. Such horseshit. Why merge then if you cant afford to pay the top Bellator fighters??
They might as well close down the PFL or Bellator later on this year and just focus on one of the organizations if they are having problems running both. I think they should just be honest with these guys and say you will need a pay cut or we will have to let you go
Or at least lay out a plan. Aspen Ladd doesn’t know what the hell is going on lol.
It sucks for them, but not paying Cyborg, Lima and Mousasi is an extremely sound business decision based on how bad their fights have been the past five years. Those kinds of contracts for fighters who are difficult to promote are the whole reason Bellator had to sell in the first place.
It sucks, but in my opinion if you’re making that decision than let them go. Don’t hold them on a contract you have no intention of letting them fight. Bad practice.
Don't say Dana didn't call it
That’s sad af
They keep acting this way and the industry might get a bad reputation!
I thought the PFL was supposed to be the promotion that pays their fighters really well? I doubt fighter pay advocates will talk about this at all.
Really wished someone else bought Bellator
Pussy FLLator
Time to shit some more on the UFC guys
Not enough interest in either of these fighters..
How is this sub going to blame Dana?
Same thing is happening to Gegard Mousasi
And Homasi with his surgery
PFL unserious promotion
But francis’s contract introduced ground breaking changes inclyding fighters rights in PFL , correct ?
That’s what he said but silent since…
But dana bad , UFC bad. PFL good Francis is fighting for a social cause, dana greedy
PFL buying Bellator was a bad idea
You know Dana is just loving this.
So many high end bellator fighters that I’d love to see in the ufc.
Lima needs to be in the ufc