The Professional Fighters’ league is coming for the UFC’s spot as the top dog in MMA promotions. However, a recent spate of suspensions on the PFL roster is making a serious hole in their ascent.
Drug suspensions, and now the choice to suspend two American Top Team athletes for a lackluster fight last week, are rocking the PFL. Grant Dawson, an American Top Team athlete signed to the UFC, is a teammate of the suspended fighters, Natan Schulte and Raush Manfio. He wants to see a boycott of the PFL over the suspensions:
UFC’s Grant Dawson Calls To “Boycott PFL” Over Latest Suspensions
“That’s a boycott PFL situation. Because that makes no sense. They’re two former champions, they’re two former tournament winners, and so for them to fight not even in the tournament, it makes no sense.
I don’t know the whole story – I think there’s some politics that went behind it. Shane Burgos, who’s another good friend of mine, I’m happy he got in, but I think that’s why they did that.
I think they matched those two up and were hoping that some type of controversy would happen to where they could slip Shane Burgos into the tournament.”
Shane Burgos is one of PFL’s bigger stars, and some – including Schulte and Manfio – believe the PFL shafted them to lock Burgos into a shot at the PFL title. The PFL is run as a tournament with playoffs, as opposed to the superfight approach of the UFC and Bellator, so fighters compete over the course of a “season” with points accumulating up until the playoffs.
As a result of the ruling, both fighters will endure suspensions that effectively remove them from the 2023 PFL season. This affected Schulte, the winner of the fight, far more. The prize for winning the PFL season is $1 million. The suspension saw Shane Burgos taking his place in the playoffs, and Natan Shulte is none too pleased.
While Grant Dawson is happy for Shane Burgos, he’s less than thrilled about the promotion as a whole. “Super happy for Shane, love that dude.
But I think that was kind of the situation. I’m really bummed out for Natan.” As for the PFL, they have stated that both Schulte and Manfio had “contractual obligations” to use their “best efforts … skills and abilities as a professional athlete to compete … and defeat any opponent.”
PFL further claimed: “It was very clear that Natan and Raush did not meet that contractual standard in [the] bout.”
