Gegard Mousasi, Patricio Pitbull, and now Aaron Pico.
What do all of these fighters have in common? You might be thinking: Is the answer that they have all gained significant buzz in Bellator?
Well, that’s true. But the answer I’m looking for is: They all left their PFL deals on a sour note in the past year.
Over 12 months, we’ve seen numerous instances where a fighter does everything in their power to get out of their PFL contract. Many of these cases—like Mousasi, Pitbull and Pico—include fighters who were originally scouted by Bellator but had their deals taken over by the PFL after they acquired the now-defunct promotion in 2023.
It is expected, to some extent, that all promotions will lose talent, especially when a bigger player like the UFC exists. The top MMA promoter can spend more than anyone else in the sport if they want to. In most cases, it doesn’t take much to outbid competitors. While UFC’s pay still starts at an incredibly low amount in comparison to the massive revenue they generate, it’s still much more than what you’d find nearly anywhere else in MMA.
But, unlike most scenarios when talent leaves an MMA promotion, that doesn’t explain what’s happening in the PFL right now. Major red flags pop up when you realize that many fighters who spent most, if not all of their careers in Bellator suddenly wanted to distance themselves from the new management. People leave periodically, but why do so many big names want out at the same time? A gripe regarding a lack of opportunities is expressed across all stories.
Since May, former champs Mousasi and Pitbull scratched and clawed their way out of their PFL deals, citing inactivity as the reason why they wanted to leave. Pico, apart from a technicality, has also left the promotion for the same reason. Others, like champs Patchy Mix and Corey Anderson, who both fought just once in 2024, have been outspoken regarding the lack of activity but remain within the company.
Pico is the most recent name of all to go public. His allegations are the perfect example of PFL’s current issue: Whether they don’t want to pay their top names or are simply not organized, it looks like they aren’t treating their biggest figures the right way.
The 28-year-old Jackson Wink contender never achieved champ status while in Bellator. But, due to his flashy fighting style and his heavily hyped rise, he had a big spotlight on him for all 16 appearances in the promotion.
Pico alleges that PFL proposed numerous matchups and dates to him in recent months, but none of the fights ever came to fruition. With his last appearance dating back nearly a year, Pico decided it was time to leave.
“I don’t want to fight for you,” Pico remembers thinking, as he recently said in an interview with MMA Junkie. “Honestly. Three times you cancelled on me. And not even a phone call to say, ‘Listen, this is what we have going on’ … But not even a phone call. So I don’t trust him [PFL’s Donn Davis]. I’m sure he’s a great guy, but this is business.”
Pico claims that while he is UFC calibre, an offer hasn’t been extended by the promotion yet. Without an official deal from the company yet, who knows if he currently has the option to make the kind of money he was earning in recent years (Pico’s last disclosed pay was $100,000 in a 2022 fight against Jeremy Kennedy).
But that wasn’t the most damning part of his story. Instead, it was this insult to injury of a detail:
When Pico spoke to MMA Junkie this week, it was mainly to he could beg that PFL drops their “right to match” clause. For anyone who doesn’t know, it’s a legal technicality which gives PFL a chance to keep Pico under contract if they are able to pay the type of deal any other competitor brand offers him.
This means if UFC offers him a four-fight deal with $100,000 per appearance and PFL is willing to pay that as well, Pico would remain a PFL fighter. These matching periods can last some time, and Pico worried in his case it could keep him inactive for another year at most.
Pico has already wasted a prime year of his career to inactivity, and he could possibly lose another because of contractual specifics. At best, the right to match is a good-faith way for PFL to keep him if they want, something it doesn’t seem like he wants to happen even if they can pay the big bucks. At worst, the contract stipulation is a way for PFL to ice Pico out before he leaves the company. Either way, it’s a sour taste to leave in the mouth of someone who has seemingly been treated poorly by them for some time.
Pico’s recent situation, like Pitbull, like Mousasi, and like others who are still with the promotion, shows how the PFL wasn’t ready for its major expansion when they bought Bellator a little over a year ago. Simply put, they bit off more than they could chew.
Sure, if you fight in PFL’s year-long tournament—something that roughly 60 fighters were able to do in past years—you can compete as much as four times a year. But what happens if you can’t, or simply don’t want to, like many Bellator fighters?
The options become few and far in between. PFL offered five non-tournament “Champions Series” cards last year, giving little room for Bellator champs to defend their belts or others to appear in one-off fights. Once again this year, it seems like the same issue will persist: While PFL presented a “Champions Series” card last month in Dubai, the tour won’t return again until July, per Damon Martin. Yes, six months in between shows.
This year, PFL expanded their tournaments to eight divisions. But, since it’s now a single-elimination bracket, that calls into question what many fighters will do once they lose in the opening round. Are the few Champions Series cards, or an undercard bout at a tournament event later in the season their only ways to get paid?
Being a competitor to the UFC—the brand so popular that your friend who doesn’t watch the sport gets it mixed up with MMA (i.e. “Didn’t that guy Georges St-Pierre used to play UFC?”)–isn’t easy. You will always lose top talent because you can only do so much to be a solid destination for fighters. That’s why Kayla Harrison, arguably the biggest PFL-raised MMA figure, left for the UFC just over a year ago.
But here’s the truth: PFL simply isn’t doing enough to be a solid destination for fighters, regardless of how good the top promoter is doing. Until they make changes to their schedule and how they treat talent on a one-on-one basis, names who have long competed in challenger MMA brands will continue to flee.
That is if their locked-down contracts let them leave to begin with.
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