Professional Fighters’ League founder, Donn Davis, believes his landmark deal with former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou is about to open up a whole new world for the sport of MMA. Davis explained his side of the story in a recent interview with My Mom’s Basement.
“Every business is easy until it’s yours. So, I respect other people’s business decisions. Look, a lot of the internet is into winners and losers. Whether it’s football trades or the Francis Ngannou deal.
PFL Founder Donn Davis Declares Ngannou Deal “Win, Win, Win”
I view this as win, win, win. This is a great deal for Francis for all the reasons it’s discussed online and social. This is a huge win for PFL, opens our pay-per-view division, we got Francis and Jake [Paul] as headliners in 2024. Probably the two most exciting fights you could ever have other than Conor [McGregor], who’s still a sensation.
It brings a huge audience draw to our media product, it is gonna bring in other fighters you’ve seen see the way to another great platform in the PFL.”
Davis’ company has made huge moves of late, signing Jake Paul as well as Francis Ngannou and establishing branches in Europe and, soon, Africa. Davis was also careful to point out that the UFC will be just fine with or without Francis Ngannou.
“It’s also a win for UFC. They’re gonna be just fine, they made their business decision and they’re still the leader in the game. So, a lot of people want to make this ‘winners and losers’ — everybody won here.
The fourth winner is all the other top-ranked MMA fighters in the world. If I’m a fighter, May 17 was the best day of my life because I saw there’s another path.
PFL has the same distribution UFC does, ESPN and DAZN … ESPN in terms of pay-per-view in the U.S., DAZN in terms of pay-per-view internationally. We’re in 150 countries on media, UFC’s in 150 countries on media, and we have the same production and the same platform capabilities they do.”
Davis described the deal as a “mystery box of candy.” “To me, what’s so fun here is the mystery box of candy and everything is going to be good.
There’s been all kind of speculation, ranging from the PFL season to [Fabricio] Werdum. I believe it will be something else and bigger and more exciting than you’ve read so far.
We have nine months — nine months ago, people would have laughed if we said Francis was gonna come to the PFL. So, if I speculated what we would do now, people would equally go, ‘Poo-pa, that will never happen,’ (laughs).
But believe me, don’t discount our resourcefulness, our creativity … who Francis will fight will be more interesting than what is speculated on the internet today.”
