The playoffs for one of the oldest sports in the United States arrived with the crisp fall breeze sending chills through the air. Playoffs are a time of excitement, while modern baseball may not provide that, fighting most certainly does. PFL heavyweight Jared Rosholt gets giddy from the mention of post-season. Whether you adore technical violence or not, a healthy dose of mixed martial arts gets the heart pumping.
Imagine if such a sport had a season and playoffs. Fortunately, you don’t have to. The inaugural season for PFL is almost complete as the playoffs begin Friday live on NBC Sports from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Jared Rosholt Playoff Excitement
Sports of North America all have a playoff aspect incorporated. The NFL, NBA, MLB, even Lacrosse, and Soccer have a post-season. Finally, someone has brought this high stakes aspect to the world of mixed martial arts. For Rosholt, this new format is a dream come true.
“I really like it because there’s a clear-cut path for the winner and the results do the talking. You don’t talk your way into something. Maybe you can talk your way into the tournament, possibly. But once you get in there, you can say what you want or do what you want. At the end of the day, if you don’t win, you don’t advance.
For me, I like that because it’s pure sport to me. With PFL here it’s just like the playoffs [in other sports]. It’s so exciting because I am a big NFL football fan I love watching it. If you get to the playoffs you can still win the whole thing. If you think of the New York Giants 8 years ago, for example, it’s just like that, it’s crazy. It’s wild that you can just get in and get on a run. Sometimes the best guy doesn’t always win and that happens all the time in MMA.”
Back to the Wrestling Days
This new format takes the former UFC heavyweight back to his days of wrestling. Rosholt transitioned to MMA following a storied career as an amateur wrestler. The Idaho raised fighter was a four-time national champion in high school and a three-time All-American at Oklahoma State University. Those competitions were similar to the current structure of the PFL season.
“I enjoy it being more active. At times in my career, off the start, you’d get into shape, you’d have a big break and then you have to start all over again. Then it got to the point with the UFC where I always training, always trying to stay in shape year-round and hope that I can get an opportunity to step in against a bigger name or something. Most of the time it never happened,” Rosholt told MMASucka. “Now it’s like you have the opportunity to get five fights in a year as long as you’re winning. It takes me back to wrestling. You get into the season and if you do well enough then you get into the tournament.”
The Transition to PFL
Rosholt was one of a group of fighters who signed with WSOF before the transitioned occurred. The news of the change in name and format was obviously welcome to the former wrestler. Not for a moment did the heavyweight lament the transition. Nearly every aspect made sense to him.
“My reaction was really excited. I was like, ‘Wow this is incredible’. When I was with the UFC, you’d be lucky to get 3 fights a year, two to three. With this, you are guaranteed two for the regular season and then if you get into the tournament, you fight quarters, semi’s, and then finals if you make it through. You’re taking five fights in one year, that’s how active I’ve always wanted to be.”
Opening Round
Rosholt holds the #7 seed in PFLs heavyweight playoff bracket. In the opening round, he faces Kelvin Tiller. It’s a remarkable matchup, considering the optics of it. This fight is a rematch, an immediate rematch. Rosholt and Tiller fought each other in what was their second and final regular season bout. Such things don’t happen often in MMA. If they do, it’s most likely a rematch of an extraordinarily close title fight.
“That’s what I think is so entertaining about MMA, you make a mistake and it can be the end of the fight. Which is what happened with [my first fight with Tiller]. I believe I was winning that fight and I had a moment there where I got out of position and Kelvin capitalized on it. He did a good job but I liked the matchup before, I like it now.
I’m glad that it happened the way that it did. I’m never happy to lose ever but if I was going to lose, what better time to do it than right before the tournament. You can’t have those mistakes anymore, this is do or die here. If you lose, you go home. There’s a lot on the line and it’s pretty crystal clear what you got to do or you’re done. I like the matchup besides the rematches that the UFC does sometimes, how often do you lose to somebody and then get to run it right back with them. And it’s not up to them. They are not like, ‘Oh I already beat you. I’m never going to fight you again.’ This is a tournament, this is where we lined up. You don’t have a choice, it’s time to do it again.”
Elevating the Pay
If the format isn’t so desirable, the end goal most definitely is. The winner of each division’s playoff tournament receives $1 million. A prize nearly unheard of for most fighters in the sport of MMA.
The prize isn’t only for the fighters, it serves the fans as well. A $1 million prize does more than change the life of one fighter. It changes the landscape of the sport. Many career mixed martial artists do not reach the higher levels of the sport, they never sign with organizations like KSW, Bellator, PFL, UFC, Rizin, or One Championship. Even for the ones that do, career earnings rarely reach higher than the million dollar mark.
“with PFL doing [it] here’s Bellator throwing million dollar prize money. That’s what we need. We need PFL putting this big money up, we need Bellator putting up that million dollars for guys to win. We need to make it all go up so everybody is saying ‘Hey, we don’t just have to go to the UFC to make a lot of money. We could go to Bellator, make a lot of money, we could go to PFL and make a lot of money.’ Then everybody has to raise the bar, that’s what we need in this sport.”
With the early success of PFL, and Bellator gifting a million dollar prize to its welterweight Grand Prix winner, the stakes of compensation become elevated. If success continues and growth accompanies it, the business of mixed martial arts becomes a healthier industry, not a gross monopoly.
