Professional Fighters League and Bellator MMA are now one.
PFL co-founder and chairman Donn Davis announced Monday the organization had acquired the rival mixed martial arts promotion, merging the rosters of the second- and third-biggest entities in the sport.
PFL acquired Bellator from Paramount Global.
Davis said on social media platform X there will be a “PFL Champs vs. Bellator Champs” crossover event in 2024.
Davis added that Bellator would be “reimagined” and continue operating as Bellator International Champions Series going forward.
PFL, which launched in 2018 after a restructuring of World Series of Fighting, has operated using a season format, with two legs of its regular season determining the top four fighters in six weight classes to compete in the playoffs and, ultimately, vie for a $1 million season championship.
Bellator abandoned a season-based, tournament-centric format in 2015 and had been running more traditional one-off events ever since — as well as ongoing $1 million grand prix brackets for select weight classes — with Bellator 301 on Friday representing its final show with broadcast partner Showtime.
PFL is set to run its season-ending PFL World Championship pay-per-view event Friday in Washington D.C., with the broadcast running on ESPN networks as the league has since striking a 2019 partnership.
Bellator champions, who presumably remain contracted and are included in the deal, are Ryan Bader (heavyweight), Vadim Nemkov (light heavyweight), Johnny Eblen (middleweight), Jason Jackson (welterweight), Usman Nurmagomedov (lightweight), Patricio Pitbull (men’s featherweight), Cris Cyborg (women’s featherweight), Patchy Mix (bantamweight) and Liz Carmouche (women’s flyweight).
The PFL season champions in their shared weight classes — heavyweight, light heavyweight, welterweight, lightweight, and both men’s and women’s featherweight — will be determined during Friday’s annual finale.
With PFL and Bellator now united under one roof, the collective rosters got a whole lot deeper.
According to Fight Matrix, a website that tracks MMA statistics and rankings, the UFC still possesses a majority or plurality of the top 50 of those men’s weight divisions and a high concentration of the top 10 in each.
But when accounting for male fighters whose most recent bout or scheduled upcoming bout involved either Bellator or PFL, there are now 17 heavyweights, 15 light heavyweights, 11 welterweights, 17 lightweights and 13 featherweights all contracted to the same promotional umbrella.
That excludes lineal heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, who is fresh of a shocking near-upset in his pro boxing debut against lineal heavyweight champ Tyson Fury last month, as well as Pitbull, whose most recent fight was under the Rizin banner as part of a cross-promotional event.
Other than global leader UFC, no promotion in more than a decade has gathered so much upper-level talent in one place.
PFL also now has a near-monopoly on the women’s featherweight division, with 11 of the top-25 from Bellator joining the nine who’s been competing for PFL to allow for a robust 145-pound weight class.
The doors are now open for superfights between all-time great Cyborg and PFL standouts Larissa Pacheco and Kayla Harrison, who each will compete in separate bouts Friday.