Lance Palmer might have enjoyed his time as PFL featherweight champ, but he’s had enough, and is eyeing the competition elsewhere. With free agency around the corner, Palmer discussed the “stacked” featherweight divisions in Bellator and the UFC, and how his last string of PFL fights took his “love for the sport” on The MMA Hour.The first problem was PFL’s choice not to run fights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The year of COVID was kind of the start of things, we didn’t see eye to eye. I think the main thing, at first is I thought that we could still have events towards the end of 2020, at least. There were talks about it, they kind of assured us that we were going to maybe have one fight at least by the end of the year, once things started clearing up.
Lance Palmer Tests Free Agency: PFL “Took My Love for the Sport”
When UFC and Bellator and other organizations started having fights again, it kind of made it a little more tumultuous and that was kind of when I started getting a bad taste in my mouth […] Then we got in 2021 and I just felt I was kind of stuck in the mud.
Fighting is hard enough of a sport, and it’s very hard if you don’t feel like the place that you’re fighting for is not on the same page with you no matter what it is.
They kind of took my love for the sport. Getting through ’21 and the first fight of ’22, I was like, man, I’ve got to change this up, it’s my career on the line every time I fight, it has nothing to do with them. And I had to get that through my head like, being angry or holding a grudge doesn’t do anything for me if I’m losing these fights.”
Now, Lance Palmer wants to talk to the biggest fight promotions on the planet.“I’d like to talk to Sean Shelby, I’d like to talk to [Scott] Coker, Mike Kogan, kind of see what they’re thinking also, because I’ve been around a long time but I don’t feel that I’m done yet.
I’ve had talks with different people and like, ‘Man, you’ve done really well, you’ve made good money,’ but for me it’s not about the money as much as it is about proving that I can hang with these guys and I am one of the best in the world.”
One fight that he really wants is former UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway. “A guy that I look up to, I follow him on Instagram and I always love his fights, was Max Holloway. I still consider him the champ. Once the champ, always the champ in my book. He’s one of the guys that I really look up to in the featherweight division in the UFC and he’s a guy that I would love to fight if the opportunity came.”
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