If you’re going to take shots at UFC head honcho Dana White and his promotion, you’d better not miss! That’s exactly what PFL’s co-founder Donn Davis is finding out the hard way, when he proclaimed that he’d spend more money for the October PFL event than what White and company spent for UFC 306 at the Las Vegas Sphere. PFL Super Fights: Battle of the Giants performed very poorly with sales amounting to $10,000 in PPV buys. Furthermore, the promotion paid Renan Ferreira $2 million, and its heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou a whopping $8 million for the fight.

Needless to say, such a disparity between PPV sales performing poorly and fighters in the headliner getting paid massive amounts shed light on the fact the PFL is scrambling to pay its other fighters (or even book them for fights). The situation is such that established fighters who generally charge more than their less experienced counterparts are struggling to land a fight under the promotion. So, it wasn’t a surprise when fighters took to X (formerly Twitter) to voice their frustrations against the PFL. Furthermore, Bellator also caught some strays, since PFL took over the promotion last November. Let’s see what fighters across both promotions had to say.

Fighters lash out at PFL and Bellator FC for inactivity

Despite having 36 wins and just 7 defeats in his career, Patricio Pitbull, had to spend months without a fight. When Leandro Higo took to X and expressed his frustration over getting his fights canceled twice in a row, Pitbull’s resonated with his fellow Brazilian Bellator contender. Although he had fought Jeremy Kennedy at Bellator Champions Series back in March 2024, Pitbull posted the following on X, “I haven’t fought since February. I wanted to fight 3x this year, but I was told I’d have to wait until December 31st and found out online my opponent would fight someone else. Then they had a replacement, I bring people over, spend more money with the camp and there’s no fight.” 

The former Bellator two-weight champion expressed his worries about the future of Bellator FC and MMA in general. However, his empathy was pretty evident towards the fighters who didn’t get a chance to fight in 2024, just because they couldn’t make shows or were expensive to book. 

Pitbull continued in his series of X posts, “This is wrong. We need answers, we need the fighters and fans to be respected. This is not a game or just some business, these are people’s lives we are talking about. A serious promotion would give fighters the chance to fight at least 3 times a year if they’re healthy.” 

Soon, Patchy Mix joined the debate and complained about his canceled bout against Leandro Higo, which was supposed to happen on November 16th. He wrote, “I’ve been training my a– off for the last half of year for nothing. This is frustrating in the prime of my career and I’ve had my fight in November cancelled? Then now again I’m being told I’m off January Dubai card? I am the best in the world and I wasnt to fight to prove it.”

Corey ‘Overtime’ Anderson was also of a similar mindset. After he moved out of the UFC to join PFL, it took him about 4 years to become the light heavyweight champion in the promotion. Despite being able to fight, he was kept waiting since March 2024 to get back into the arena. And being a 35-year-old fighter definitely didn’t help his cause. He posted on X, “Aging like a warm cheese over here waiting for @PFLMMA to give me a call. But don’t get it twisted…. We still ready to defend the strap against ANYBODY! Young or OLD!!”

But wasn’t this exactly what Dana White predicted back in October? Well the UFC head honcho did criticize PFL’s move to spend more money on the battle between Francis Ngannou and Renan Ferreira. It was as if White already knew that the PPV sales wouldn’t be enough. 

Dana White gave his verdict on PFL: Battle of the Giants

Back in October, White criticized the PFL’s move to overspend on Ngannou vs. Ferreira. He claimed, “F—ing throw the kitchen sink at it. This guy [co-founder Donn Davis] just came out recently and said, ‘We’re going to spend more money than they did on the Sphere.’”. Dana White had spent over $20 million on UFC 306. Which meant Davis had spent more than that at PFL: Battle of the Giants.

He continued, “That sounds f—ing brilliant. How many tickets are you going to sell? Yeah, they’re not very bright. Yeah. So if I were them, listen, it’s all fair. Knock yourself out. They’re drowning. Drowning.” The UFC head honcho simply claimed that the PFL officials weren’t good at what they did.

But they had to try hard and make the fights sell. Being one of the most celebrated heavyweights in the world of mixed martial arts, Davis expected ‘The Predator’ to attract more audiences, but the reality check was a bit too harsh. With only 10K PPVs sold on ESPN+, the fight promotion experienced a loss that they never really anticipated. The cost of a single PPV was $49.99. This meant that the organization made only $500K in an event where they had to pay more than $10 million to fighters. No wonder the promotion wasn’t able to let fighters like Corey Anderson compete. 

What do you think of the PFL/Bellator fighters’ statements regarding their inactivity? Let us know what you think in the comments down below.