PFL Announces 2025 World Tournament
It has been a chaotic opening to the year for the PFL. A whirlwind of rumors, whispers and speculation have followed the self-styled “co-leader” of worldwide MMA ever since their acquisition of Bellator in November of 2023.
That uncertainty came to a head this week as the company made moves to tie up some loose ends ahead of their first event of the year, the Road to Dubai Champions Series event that takes place on January 25th.
“Bellator Is Dead”
First came the (not entirely unexpected) news that the Bellator brand is no more. “Bellator is dead” exclaimed Ariel Helwani on his show earlier this week. “Bellator, as we know it, is no more. Bellator is dead. You will not see Bellator events anymore”.
“There are going to what is being referred to as PFL Champions Series events. Those events are going to be headlined by title fights. PFL is going to start having its own champions. Not just ‘season champions’, not just ‘tournament champions’…its own champion”.
Helwani went on to explain that the organization is planning to make big changes to the way they run their global tournament.
“The PFL season format is no more” he revealed. “What it is now is somewhere in the range of 6-8 weight classes being featured, eight fighters, two alternates, single-elimination tournament. There’s no more standings, there’s no more points or anything like that. Single-elimination tournament, grand prix-style if you will”.
New Tournament Structure in 2025
Via a press release on Wednesday, the promotion confirmed the layout of their 2025 world tournament:
“The Professional Fighters League announced the launch of its new 2025 World Tournament featuring eight weight classes, each with eight world-class fighters competing to claim the title of PFL Tournament Champion. The PFL 2025 World Tournament starts in April, with semi-finals in June, and finals in August. All fights will be available live on ESPN and ESPN+ in the U.S. and broadcast and streamed live to 190 countries with 20 premium media partners.
One Shot. The annual single-elimination tournament will feature brackets at Heavyweight, Light Heavyweight, Middleweight, Welterweight, Lightweight, Featherweight, Bantamweight, and Women’s Flyweight. The PFL World Tournament spans an action packed five months. 64 of the best fighters from around the world will compete to win MMA’s toughest test – win three straight times in five months to become PFL Tournament Champion.
The First Round fights and the Semi-Final fights will be three, five-minute rounds while the Finals are five, five-minute rounds. All events and all fights now allow the use of elbows. The PFL World Tournament will payout over $20 million in total prize money, including a $500,000 bonus for every winner.
The eight brackets and corresponding matchups will be released in February.
“The PFL World Tournament is continued innovation by PFL, and we are thrilled to present to global MMA fans an even more exciting product,” Peter Murray, PFL CEO said. “One shot, single elimination, nothing more exciting in all of sports.”
Fans will eagerly await next month’s news concerning which fighters will be taking part in the tournament and what matchups they can expect to see. At the time of writing, only Marc Diakiese had been confirmed to be taking part.
Many of the promotion’s current stars such as Paul Hughes, Dakota Ditcheva and Impa Kasanganay could well feature, and a promotional video released on Wednesday featured testimonials from other talents within the organisation such as Brent Primus, Nathan Kelly and Clay Collard.
You only get 𝗢𝗡𝗘 𝗦𝗛𝗢𝗧.☝️
64 Fighters. Single elimination tournament 💰🏆
One Shot to WIN. One Shot to ADVANCE. One Shot at a WORLD TITLE#PFLWorldTournament pic.twitter.com/7YlTLgKPAB
— PFL (@PFLMMA) January 15, 2025
The promotion gets its calendar year underway later this month in Dubai when Bellator lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov will attempt to defend his belt against Ireland’s Paul Hughes. No official confirmation has been forthcoming yet about the future of that belt, or whether the winner of this fight will become the official PFL champion.
As always with the promotion, it’s simply a case of “wait and see”.
