The PFL Thread 💰

[Egg Shen]

The forum's basically a dead duck these days so i'll leave the PFL thread alone from now on, but Cedric Doumbe really is the goods. UFC's loss is PFL's gain:

 

[Egg Shen]

Big ol' week in the PFL. The Bellator news dropped and tomorrow is the finals of the 2023 season.

This season has been a bit of a nightmare truth be told. A bunch of fighters got popped for PED's, big signing failed to progress and what we're left with is a bunch of fights between PFL mainstays in positions to win the million bucks. That said, they aren't bad fights, and with the winners of these fights basically confirmed be fighting Bellator's Champions next year, there's some proper stakes attached.

Here's the Championship card. 2 solid showcase fights with Kayla Harrison/Aspen Ladd (not Budd as in the graphic) and Ray Cooper/Derek Brunson too.

Solid lineup:

[Egg Shen]

Updated graphic:

Starts at 10pm UK time on DAZN.

[Kfogg1991]

1 hour ago, Egg Shen said:

Updated graphic:

Starts at 10pm UK time on DAZN.

Bloody hell I thought I was clear this weekend and not have anything on go make my brain not sleep so I can watch survivor series tomorrow night.

 

That main card is phenomenal 

[wandshogun09]

42 minutes ago, Kfogg1991 said:

That main card is phenomenal 

Gotta say, unless some of the names I’m not familiar with are killers I’m yet to discover, it looks bang average to me. Titles all over the shop doesn’t really cut it for me when the fights themselves are OK at best. And 5 title fights on one card is just overkill and asking for a dull night. Any long time MMA fan knows that history doesn’t favour those cards turning out well. Anything more than 2 title fights on a card seems to be a curse. The only time I remember an example of it that didn’t shit the bed was UFC 205 with McGregor vs Alvarez, Woodley vs Wonderboy 1 (the good fight not the shite rematch) and Jedrzejczyk vs Kowalkiewicz. 

There’s some points of interest on this PFL card and I’ll try and give some of it a look. I like Cooper vs Brunson and I’d like to see Impa Kasanganay do well as I always found him likeable in his brief UFC stint and felt bad for him that he’ll probably always mostly be remembered for being on the wrong end of Joaquin Buckley’s all timer of a KO. But aside from that, Harrison vs Ladd? Aubin-Mercier vs Collard might be alright, I guess. 

Not knocking PFL. I haven’t followed them as closely as I’d like, just don’t get much time to watch much outside the UFC and Boxing these days. I like PFL’s presentation and I’ve enjoyed the stuff I have watched. But despite loading it up on title fights, this isn’t one of their best shows for me. On paper anyway. Hopefully it overdelivers and they knock it out of the park but, just going off the card on paper, there isn’t much there that’s appealing for me.

Let’s be honest, if this was a UFC card with exactly the same fights it’d be getting shat on left, right and centre. I know the UFC gets held to a higher standard, and they should really, but fights are fights at the end of the day. If a fight interests me and pulls me in I’ll watch it regardless of the promotion it’s held in. But on the flipside, I’ve seen some really mediocre cards from PFL and Bellator and so on get praised on social media that would likely be panned if the UFC offered them up. I think it’s probably a case of fans wanting to see an alternative org succeed and I totally get that. But again, fights are fights and I can’t fake enthusiasm where there isn’t much.

I think I’m just being a grumpy shit because I started the thread for the UFC Apex card on Dec 9 earlier (Song vs Gutierrez headliner) and there really isn’t much to that one 😒

[Dai]

1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said:

Gotta say, unless some of the names I’m not familiar with are killers I’m yet to discover, it looks bang average to me. Titles all over the shop doesn’t really cut it for me when the fights themselves are OK at best. 

Between this post and the one for Bellator, which he said was amazing when it wasn't, kfog has been taking some positivity pills by the looks of it. 

I still can't get my head around the fact that there's six million dollars being given away on no names that nobody cares about, on a PPV which no one will buy. It makes Afflictions business model look reasonable. The Saudi cash must be flowing in like a tidal wave. 

A seven fight PPV, with five 5 round fights sounds awful too. Everything just seems to be done wrong with the PFL

[Kfogg1991]

1 hour ago, Dai said:

Between this post and the one for Bellator, which he said was amazing when it wasn't, kfog has been taking some positivity pills by the looks of it. 

I still can't get my head around the fact that there's six million dollars being given away on no names that nobody cares about, on a PPV which no one will buy. It makes Afflictions business model look reasonable. The Saudi cash must be flowing in like a tidal wave. 

A seven fight PPV, with five 5 round fights sounds awful too. Everything just seems to be done wrong with the PFL

I'm not having that the last bellator card was fucking great at least in terms of the main card I enjoyed every single fight on it.

And I'll change slightly and make an addition for me personally the main card on this PFL card is a set of potential great fights with each fight having fighters I know and enjoy so yeah I'm hyped for it.

Brucey bonus it starts at 10pm our time too however the same time the Gcw show starts aswell so I might split screen then both at least for the prelims for PFL anyways.

Trust me in person and overall I'm entirely the opposite of happy on positive pills lol so I'm happy I am coming across that way online at least 

[Egg Shen]

14 hours ago, wandshogun09 said:

 

Not knocking PFL. I haven’t followed them as closely as I’d like, just don’t get much time to watch much outside the UFC and Boxing these days. I like PFL’s presentation and I’ve enjoyed the stuff I have watched. But despite loading it up on title fights, this isn’t one of their best shows for me. On paper anyway. Hopefully it overdelivers and they knock it out of the park but, just going off the card on paper, there isn’t much there that’s appealing for me.

 

I'm probably hyped on the PFL because I do follow it, and the whole season process as well as how they market the product does really lead to investment in the fights. I do fully understand the viewpoint that if a fan of the sport looked at that card without having followed the season, they'd probably think it was massively underwhelming. It also doesn't help that the fighters that the PFL bring in each year and do generate buzz tend to lose before getting to the final, this year that happened to Shane Burgos. It's why the PPV price tag always gets so much backlash, to most people that main card is involving fighters who left the UFC without making much of an impression.

I'm typing this after the show has taken place and i'm avoiding the results, so I don't know if it's delivered but I really hope it has.

[wandshogun09]

Maybe MVP isn’t UFC bound after all. Wherever he ends up, he’s right to shop around like this. And publicly so the other side knows he’s got options. Not a huge fan of him but he’s an attraction (to a certain level) and at 36 his next big contract will very possibly be his last. Makes sense to check out all offers and do everything possible to maximise his price. Basically he’s doing exactly what I thought Derrick Lewis would do before he just instantly re-signed with the UFC.

[Egg Shen]

Yeah, cracking stuff from the PFL. I still think he may end up in the UFC, but it's always cool seeing things like that.

The actual European Championship show was really good. Far better paced than the World Championships, and benefited from having the title titles end early. Some big upsets across the card too.

[Egg Shen]

Ok, we got UFC 299 and a little shinding over in Saudi this weekend but don't sleep on Thursday evenign in Paris. The first PFL Europe show of the year and the small matter of Cedric Doumbe headlining. Don't think it's hypebole to say that outside of Ngannou, Doumbe might be the biggest star in the sport outside of the UFC. The last performance was the non-UFC highlight of last year and Thursday could be more of the same. Live on DAZN by the way.

They ain't matched him up easily. Chamsoudimov is one of France's top 170lb'ers with a big following of his own. This thing is gonna be banana.

If anyone needs any reminded of Doumbe's last PFL appearence:

 

 

 

Edited March 6 by Egg Shen

[Egg Shen]

Main event is set, Baki looks a unit. Interestingly odds have shortened on this, Doumbe was the favorite, its pretty much a pickup now.

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Egg Shen]

Today's fight card in full. Lazy King co-main too, dont sleep on that mad fucker. Gonna be good this. 4pm start on DAZN.

 

[wandshogun09]

I’m gonna give this a bash. Most I’ve ever looked forward to a PFL show and the start times work. Good stuff. 

[wandshogun09]

Did anyone watch this in the end? With it being on Thursday I nearly forgot about it. It was only thanks to the@Egg Shen post above that I remembered. 

Really shitty way for the Baki vs Doumbe fight to end. It was the main reason I even made the point of tuning in live, I watched the whole undercard waiting for the main event. When the time finally arrived the atmosphere was off the charts and Doumbe genuinely looked like the biggest star outside the UFC by far. I know it was a home crowd and stuff but you don’t see many fighters even in the UFC who get reactions like that. The fight itself was engrossing while it lasted. Baki looked a handful but I actually liked the bits of defensive grappling Doumbe showed. I had them 1-1 going into the third round and all I could think was ‘I wish this had 5 rounds to play out’. Then it went all weird in the third.

One of the more bizarre endings to a big fight that I’ve ever seen. Doumbe started looking and pointing down at his foot, signalling an injury. Ref Marc Goddard told them to fight on. Then they stopped again, Baki pointed at Doumbe’s foot and said something to Goddard and Goddard waved the fight off. Turned out it was a splinter of some sort in Doumbe’s toe. Like a shard of glass or something. Why that was in the cage in the first place, I don’t know. What’s this, deathmatch wrestling? But yeah, massive anti-climax. 

Goddard’s taken a lot of criticism for his call here. And I absolutely get it. It was such a disappointing ending. On the one hand, technically Goddard was right. There wasn’t a foul committed and there are no time outs for an injury like that. Goddard told him to fight on and he didn’t so, technically, he was correct to call it off. Given the circumstances though, the injury wasn’t anything to do with the actual fight and it was caused by something that shouldn’t have been on the canvas to begin with. In a situation like that, it seems extra unfortunate and definitely harsh to call it a TKO win for Baki rather than a No Contest. But if those are the rules, Goddard is going by that. It’s just a shite way for it to end. Maybe this will cause the rules to be amended slightly for cases like this. Doumbe seemed to take it in good spirits and handled it well. He didn’t kick off at Goddard like a lot of fighters probably would’ve. But man, again, what a letdown. Seems like a no brainer to just do the immediate rematch now though, and it’ll be bigger next time with this as the backstory. 

Really enjoyed the Lazy King vs Jack Grant fight in the co-main. Close one as well. One of my favourite fights so far this year. Some of the grappling scrambles were fantastic and Grant didn’t come to lose or just put on a show. I felt like Lazy might’ve edged it but it was close. 

Aside from that, I’m not massively familiar with PFL’s roster so I’m forgetting their names but there were a bunch of great finishes on the undercard. Including a nasty quick Von Flue choke sub, a quick heel hook which you don’t see often these days and a big uppercut KO. 

Oh and this proper cracked me up. What was he playing at? 🤣

Good show on the whole but ended on a real downer unfortunately.