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Marc Raimondi, ESPN Staff Writer
LAS VEGAS — Ali Abdelaziz posted a few lines Dec. 10 on social media that raised the collective eyebrows of the mixed martial arts industry.
The prominent MMA manager, who has helped guide the careers of all-time greats such as Khabib Nurmagomedov and Kamaru Usman, wrote on X that he was “truly concerned” about the state of the sport and that he had never felt that way before.
The post was vague, and Abdelaziz didn’t provide much in the way of an explanation as a follow-up. Many fans questioned exactly what he was getting at. The post has been viewed nearly a million times.
But others in the sport share Abdelaziz’s worries about the future going into 2024. Professional Fighters League acquired Bellator MMA last month, taking one of the main non-UFC promotions off the board. The perception among some in the industry is that another major promotion, ONE Championship, is struggling. PFL is healthy, has deep coffers and is growing. But it would be impossible to bring every single fighter over from Bellator.
So, where does that leave those athletes, the ones who might be somewhere between the UFC and fighting on the regional level who still depend on paychecks from their fights to provide for themselves and their families?
“I believe the market is a very scary place to be right now,” Abdelaziz told ESPN.
Bellator has about 250 fighters under contract, according to former Bellator matchmaker Mike Kogan, who was hired by PFL last week. Kogan’s role with the PFL has not been announced yet. Abdelaziz fears that could leave up to 100 fighters without a clear home next year. Some will hook on with other promotions, but likely not for the kind of money Bellator was paying them. Promotions such as LFA, Invicta FC, Cage Warriors, Combate Global and others have solid products and quality fighters, but they are either smaller operations, regionally based or focused on specific audiences.
No one in the industry blames PFL. Viacom was getting out of the combat sports business, and had PFL not acquired Bellator, the promotion would have just dissolved and all of its fighters would have been out of jobs. Abdelaziz said he believes “PFL saved the day,” but there are only so many fighters PFL can retain logistically. The plan is for PFL to run about 30 events next year, executives have said.
“One of my biggest worries is everybody goes out of business and only the UFC and PFL will be standing,” Abdelaziz said. “And after that, as managers and fighters, we have no negotiating power. And, the UFC needs ONE FC, they need Bellator and they need PFL because, in reality, they can’t grow everyone from the bottom up. These guys [the other promotions], they do that. Sometimes, people leave to go to the UFC or they’re in the UFC and they go to PFL or ONE. It’s good for the fighters.”
UFC president Dana White had been glib about PFL acquiring Bellator, saying in a media scrum that it was “one s—ty organization buys another s—ty organization.” But even he acknowledged Saturday night at the UFC 296 postfight news conference that the loss of another global promotion is not good for the health of the MMA ecosystem.
“It’s a bad thing,” White said. “It’s not a good thing for there to be less options, not only for fighters and fighting, but guys who are coming up to have less options. So yes, it’s definitely not a good thing.”
Several managers ESPN talked to for this article don’t have much faith in ONE as a destination in this perceived as weak outside-of-UFC marketplace.
“I know ONE FC was discussing coming more to America, but it doesn’t seem like that is happening,” one manager of many fighters across promotions told ESPN under condition of anonymity. “Obviously, I’m not privy to some of those behind-closed-door conversations, but we’ve only seen one event so far in Denver, which seemed like it was a success, but we haven’t seen anything since then. That’s concerning to me that they’re not going to have a physical presence in America like we thought they would.”
ONE announced over the summer that the plan is to run four U.S. shows in 2024. However, a report from financial publication Dead Street Asia stated that ONE’s “runway is expected to expire” by the third quarter of 2024. In other words, the promotion needs more investors or it could be in danger of going under. Bloody Elbow reported, from financial documents, that ONE lost $110 million in 2021 and that the losses are growing.
ONE declined comment directly, but referred ESPN to quotes chairman Chatri Sityodtong told the South China Morning Post earlier this month.
Sityodtong said that “you can’t believe everything you read” and that ONE’s revenues will be more than $100 million in 2023. He said he had “literally zero” worries about the promotion’s finances.
“It’s unfortunate [that] there’s haters who have an axe to grind but they can grind,” Sityodtong said. “My team and I, my board and my investors, are 1,000% in. It would be another story, there would be more credence to it, if all of our metrics were falling apart or something.”
Meanwhile, there is hope in the industry about what PFL could end up being. The promotion made a massive splash in 2023. PFL signed Francis Ngannou, who was the UFC heavyweight champion, and Jake Paul, the lightning-rod YouTuber-turned-prizefighter. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invested around $100 million in PFL. And, to top it all off, PFL picked up Bellator in a bargain deal, adding several high-end talents to its burgeoning roster.
PFL has signaled to the MMA industry that it’s going to be a legitimate player for free agents. Earlier this month, free agent Michael “Venom” Page popped up at a PFL Europe event in Ireland and got in the cage to face off with PFL prospect Cedric Doumbé. Page, a flashy knockout artist formerly with Bellator, ended up signing with the UFC, but sources said PFL was very much in the running with a lucrative offer.
“They’ve made a statement for all of us in the market to see,” said Audie Attar, CEO of Paradigm Sports Management, who represents Conor McGregor, among others. “Whether it’s Ngannou, whether it’s Paul, they made a statement by how they structured those deals, based on the visibility of them [stated in] some of the media reports.”
PFL’s business relationship with the Saudis also does not hurt its strength. When that deal was announced, the stocks of UFC parent company Endeavor and WWE, which has merged with the UFC under a new publicly traded company called TKO Group, both went down. The UFC will also make its first trip to Saudi Arabia in March and got a $20 million site fee for it, Endeavor president Mark Shapiro said at a conference earlier this month.
“I think [PFL]’s cap table and their investors are just too smart to f— up,” one MMA agent under condition of anonymity told ESPN last month. “I don’t think they’ll ever be the No. 1, but I think they’ll be competitive.”
One of the byproducts of PFL acquiring Bellator is former Bellator president Scott Coker’s absence from the sport, at least for the time being. Coker also owned and built Strikeforce, which was purchased by the UFC and had some of the best talent in the world. MMA analyst and former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen said he hopes a promotion at least brings Coker on as a consultant if he’s interested.
“He is a proven top-three mind in the history of the sport,” said Sonnen, who fought for Bellator under Coker.
Could there be room for a new, major MMA promotion with Bellator being folded into PFL? One manager said maybe in North America “if it’s properly funded and can attract talent.”
PFL hiring Kogan was met with near unanimous praise from Bellator fighters and others in the industry. He’s been involved with MMA for more than two decades, helped build the best roster in Bellator history and managed the likes of Nate Diaz previously. Kogan said those worried about the state of the sport should pump the brakes a bit and let PFL do its thing.
It’s not out of the question, he said, to see PFL one day run more than 40 events per year and have more than 600 fighters under contract like the UFC does. It might not happen in 2024, but PFL has a vision and a lot of ambition, he said.
“[PFL buying Bellator] is not bad for the sport,” Kogan said. “It’s good for the sport. Everybody will be fine. You know what would have been bad for the sport? All the Bellator fighters getting a release letter on Jan. 1. That would be bad for the sport.”