After the purchase of Bellator, PFL President Donn Davis vowed that the league will become a “co-leader” in the mixed martial arts industry and called Dana White “worried.”
It was formally revealed by the league on Monday that it had bought the roster and assets of Bellator MMA. This is a move that will significantly improve the PFL’s position in the MMA globe.
Davis, the man who started the PFL and is now its president, couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities that lay ahead of his organization, particularly in reference to the way in which the acquisition may speed up the expansion of the league.
Davis made an appearance on The MMA Hour immediately after the announcement that PFL and Bellator were merging to discuss a variety of issues.
One of the questions that Davis addressed was whether or not he believes that UFC CEO Dana White has been feeling the heat as a result of acquisition rumors that have been swirling for several months.
Davis takes White’s recent dismissal of the PFL and Bellator in response to a question about the prospective news as a sign that they and his staff are on the right track and that they are hitting the appropriate buttons.
Davis made the statement that “everyone knows Dana well enough that he only dismisses things that worry him, or else he just doesn’t comment.” “Because he wasn’t concerned, he remained silent about the PFL for a period of four years.
Over the course of the past half year, he has provided numerous comments on the PFL. You appear to be concerned.
The numbers that we included on the press release were the particular aspect of Bellator that concerned him the most.
According to the rankings from Fight Matrix, thirty percent of the roster was ranked in the top 25.
This is not an opportunity for Dana to evaluate his own guys; rather, Don is doing the ranking here.
There is just one organization, called Fight Matrix, that independently ranks all of the fighters.
The combined rosters of PFL and Bellator bring our organization up to the same level as the top 25 ranked fighters on the UFC’s roster, which is thirty percent. In the same way.
Davis cited his mentor Ted Leonsis in order to provide an explanation for his unrestrained optimism.
Leonsis is most popularly recognized by sports fans as the owner of three different sports clubs in the state of Washington: the Wizards, the Capitals, and the Mystics.
According to Davis, one of the phrases for which Leonsis was most well-known was “declare victory,” a mantra that was intended to be utilized frequently in both business and life.
According to Davis, victory does not depend on the PFL being able to defeat the UFC; rather, it depends on the UFC being able to make room at the top for another significant player.
When you start a business, you are responsible for everything from the very beginning, as Davis put it.
“From the very beginning, folks were saying, ‘This whole season structure thing ain’t going to work.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship is an 8,000-pound gorilla; hundreds of organizations have tried to compete with it.
When a day like this comes around, all you can do is think about the next chapter. Second place is our primary objective right now. That was the primary objective we set for ourselves.
Everyone is familiar enough with Dana White to know that he only brushes off things that make him anxious, or else he simply doesn’t comment on them.
The numbers that we included on the press release were the particular aspect of Bellator that concerned him the most.
Its roster had thirty percent of its members ranked in the top twenty-five in the Fight Matrix.
There’s no comparison between the UFC and the NFL. He would like for you to believe that we are the XFL, but we are not.
And it’s just a matter of days until that starts to acquire more widespread recognition, and when it does, people will realize that we’re not second two; we’re a co-leader. They are opposed to that, and that is the current situation.
All of the Bellator competitors will be arriving here shortly. A portion of the work we did, and obviously, it might have worked better for PFL to only pick specific fighters, is that we only took certain guys.
We were of the opinion that it would be better for both the sport and those combatants if they took them all.
On “The MMA Hour,” Davis said, “Everyone knows Dana well enough to know that he only dismisses issues that worry him, or else she just doesn’t comment.”
“Because he wasn’t concerned in the least, he refrained from making any remarks regarding the PFL for a period of four years.
Over the course of the past half year, he has provided numerous comments regarding the PFL. He was concerned.
After integrating Bellator’s roster, the PFL now possesses a bigger share of elite MMA athletes than it had in the past, and Davis believes that this is cause for concern on White’s part.
Davis, who established the PFL in 2017, is of the opinion that the PFL is currently the undisputed No. 2 mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion and is well on its way to become a “co-leader” of the UFC.