PFL announces mid-event Nav concert while ignoring Bellator fighter complaints

Val Dewar

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PFL announces mid-event Nav concert while ignoring Bellator fighter complaints image

PFL instagram

PFL's announcement image for Nav's concert on social media.

MMA promotion PFL has shown a startling lack of awareness by announcing a concert by rapper Nav which will occur in the middle of Friday's upcoming 2024 season championships while most fans are focused on the issue of Bellator stars being unable to get fights.

This announcement comes one day after Bellator FW champ and GOAT Patricio Pitbull took to Twitter to remark, in reply to a thread of quote tweets began by colleague Patchy Mix, about poor treatment of fighters since the Professional Fighter's League purchased the rival promotion in the last year.

Eight Bellator events were promised but only five will be delivered in 2024, with the final two events of the year (Paris and the  Bellator New Year show in Japan) were canceled unceremoniously. The traditional Bellator NYE event received no announcement for its cancellation, and was not confirmed to be canceled until Pitbull’s statement.

This is all taking place amidst an environment where fight fans are interested in the prospect of a strong #2 MMA promotion to rival the UFC but are growing disillusioned with the choices of the PFL. As a result, many fans have been highly-critical of PFL on social media.

The promotions event pacing has been oft-maligned by fans, making their decision to promote Nav, a Canadian rapper signed to the Weeknd's XO record label, even more bizarre. Playing a concert smack-dab in the middle of a card which begins at 7:15am EST and already has 16 total fights, including ten five-round fights, will not help those viewer concerns.

The biggest decision the promotion made was to buy Bellator for around $100 million in stocks. That added many elite fighters to their roster such as the aforementioned Pitbull, Patchy Mix, Corey Anderson, Cris Cyborg, Gegard Mousasi, and Sergio Pettis. These fighters, and more, could have pushed PFL to the next level. However, all of those stars have complained at least about their treatment, while Mousasi is actively suing the organization.

Unfortunately, they made the decision to preserve their unusual and often frustrating season format while keeping Bellator as a separate entity instead of combining both promotions to create a vast and multi-talented roster of fighters. The format is holding them back at this point, though it made them unique when the promotion was first formed from the corpse of World Series of Fighting (WSOF). 

The championships of PFL have generally delivered good fights but musical performances, military ceremonies, and other non-fighting events taking place which slow down these cards have not been well-received in past years by the fanbase.

One also has to wonder, how much is this 'fighter-first promotion' paying Nav that they could have spent to get Bellator fighters the amount of fights they were promised in 2024?

Val Dewar

Val Dewar Photo

Val was initiated into Steelers Nation from the moment he was born — his first memory is a game vs. New England from when "Slash" was QB — and doing sports writing has always been a dream career for him. In 2022 he broke into the industry by writing about combat sports for Cageside Press, and now has the opportunity to continue that work with TSN as an MMA writer, as well as get his feet wet on the Steelers beat.