While the start of the PFL’s 2025 regular season is still a few months away, the MMA promotion is already making headlines ahead as its offseason continues. On the first Monday of the new year, President Donn Davis made a major announcement concerning legal strikes in contests.
After the promotion relaxed its stance on elbow shots as illegal blows for the PFL Championship card in November on Black Friday, Davis made big news early Monday morning. In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), a welcome development came to fruition.
New Year … New Adjustments
YOU asked for ELBOWS@PFLMMA is giving you elbows!All elbows. All fights. All the time. #PFLMMA 2025 … COMING
— Donn Davis (@DonnDavisPFL) January 6, 2025
No More Illegal Elbow Strikes in PFL in 2025
Effective with the promotion’s new season later this year, it has now completely abolished its stance against elbow shots as forbidden strikes for every single fight in the organization.
“New Year… New Adjustments,” Davis wrote on the social media platform earlier Monday. “YOU asked for elbows. @PFLMMA is giving you elbows. All elbows. All fights. All the time.” Previously, the rule on elbow strikes would only be relaxed in the event that a showcase fight would be held on the undercard of a show.
Back in 2018, ahead of the organization’s first season after its rebranding from the original World Series of Fighting, Yves Edwards, who worked as an analyst on telecasts for the promotion, was a guest on USA Today’s MMA Junkie Radio. At the time of the interview, he explained the reasoning behind the ban on elbows.
“If you get cut this week, and you can’t fight five weeks from now because of a [medical] suspension,” Edwards mentioned, “that’s going to be a problem, especially when we get to the playoffs.”
Now, less than seven years later, the promotion has made elbows legal across the board.
Reaction to PFL Lifting Elbow Ban
Subsequent to the announcement that the organization would no longer consider elbow strikes as illegal blows, X users weighed in on the change. While some people applauded the move, others made light of Donn Davis’ decision-making when it comes to the PFL’s handling of other fighters.
Making that adjustment is HUGE
Now I don't have to explain the reasoning every event 💚
Viva la PFL
— Rob (Jspec) Nakamura🤙🏼 (@JspecTheHost) January 6, 2025
Donn Davis Takes To LinkedIn to Discuss PFL’s Status Heading Into 2025
Sunday, one day before Davis revealed that the PFL would be permanently abolishing the rule against elbow shots, he posted on his LinkedIn page to talk about the position that the organization finds itself in heading into the new season.
“Building any company has many issues and setbacks which require creativity and perseverance,” Davis wrote Sunday. “Five hard things that happened to PFL in 2024: One: Several potential new investors wasted huge amounts of our precious time, but we found the right ones. Two: Big new advertiser agreed to deal and was in final contract, but new management stopped [the] deal.”
“Three: Some Bellator star fighters complained on social media about not fighting enough, but PFL makes best overall decisions concerning all our fighters,” Davis continued. “Four: We are growing so fast with our new international leagues that costs in some regions are too high. Five: Major new initiative and expansion is delayed by a year by one of our partners, through no fault of PFL.”
Donn Davis closed the LinkedIn post with the following:
“PFL enters 2025 in our BEST POSITION EVER,” he wrote. “Do NOT let others foil you, keep you down, stop you.”
League’s Decision To Permit Elbows in All Fights a Great Start for 2025
While the marriage between Bellator MMA and the Professional Fighters League hasn’t been a stylish pairing, any relationship, be it personal or professional, takes time to smooth out. To a man, most people in MMA circles had to know that the road for the PFL in the aftermath of acquiring Bellator would be a bumpy one in 2024.
The permission of elbow strikes is a welcome move made by Donn Davis. Hopefully, the league will have more elbow shots like this that result in highlight-reel knockouts in 2025.
