Where are you guys from btw? If there are fellow European DAZNers out here: Do give the Rajamdamnern Muay Thai shows a chance. There is quite a high prevalence of banger fights and I really like the genuinely hyped casters (and the Muay Thai background music of course – now that would be a fun experiment for MMA ;)).

So, the first thing I wanna vent about without actually spamming anyone of you is that I found PFL to be surprisingly shit. I sat through the recent event, all hyped for good MMA show that is not brought about by some hypercapitalist, advertisement-plastered, WWE fake shit pulling organisation (without actually going to the trenches of finding the few good fights in regional promotions…). But oh my lawd, it felt they tried to fucking outdo the UFC and their terrible gimmicks like the awful celebrity tweets or the commentator cam after a knockout. I just wanna watch some fights with beautiful violence and they fucking overlay Wiz Khalifa on a two-second delay EVERY FUCKING ROUND. Is there anyone in the world who thinks this is a good addition? How do you even come up with that – “hey, maybe the fights will be shite anyways, so let’s have some interview on the side in case the viewers are bored and ruined be TikToK anyways”?! It screams “please, please have Jake Paul fans post about us” to me instead of actually being in there to deliver a good FIGHTING show.

On the other hand I found it funny how it kinda exposed the basic analysis we often get. Like, Jake Paul generally didn’t say much else than what we get to hear from the commentators, only with less speaking skills. But that might be (even more than the rest) personal preference – some people apparently like the hype man stuff.

I get that the PFL is backed by similar(ly terrible) folks, so why expect something else. But I at least hoped for them not copying the UFC concept of trying to seem all mainstream and just throwing more money at basically the same thing. The tournament format is fun and the perfect example of what I’d hoped for – offering an alternative to the UFC concept, backed by enough money to make it fun to watch. More like ONE maybe. Alas the acquisition of Bellator seems to point in the opposite direction even here, with them announcing to organise regular fights outside the tournament style. But who knows, maybe I’m judging to fast and they are planning to experiment with stuff like different fight rules, different gloves, open scoring or more judges, a subscription model without advertisement, making fighter pay transparent.

Okay, not all of that stuff is properly thought-out and I wouldn’t normally write things like this down for strangers to see and judge, but maybe we can get some discussion going here ;)