Donn Davis, founder and chairman of the Professional Fighters League (PFL), continues to dismiss any suggestion that his promotion hasn’t done right by fighters it acquired through the Bellator acquisition.
Davis and the PFL have come under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks after a number of fighters went public with their complaints about management.
Most notably, champions Patricio “Pitbull” Freire and Patchy Mix marked some of the unhappy ex-Bellator stars who were left without their desired number of fights in 2024 — the first full calendar year post-the PFL’s purchase of its rival organization. That led to them even requesting their release from the PFL on social media.
The promotion hasn’t released an official statement, however, and its founder has been largely dismissive of the fighters’ complaints in his recent LinkedIn and X posts.
And after previously insisting he and his colleagues did “the best” they could, Davis’ latest comments have once again failed to take the likes of “Pitbull” and Mix’s thoughts seriously.
Davis wrote on social media Wednesday, claiming that Bellator fighters actually “got way more fights” than PFL athletes in 2024 in spite of the numerous canceled Champions Series cards.
Of course, the addition of context to Davis’ figures does little to help his case.
While plenty of fighters were added to the PFL’s season format, where they competed numerous times, that doesn’t change the fact that Freire, Mix, Danny Sabatello and the like made the walk just once.
It’s hard to imagine those sidelined fighters will be changing their stance on a push for more activity as long as others were handed two or three times more appearances in the cage.
Unsurprisingly, Davis’ latest attempt at pushing away fighter complains did not go down well with the MMA community online — to say the least.
