PFL 4: Olivier Aubin-Mercier Questions Lightweight Match-Ups, Still Feels Lucky to Have Opportunity

Atlanta, GA — PFL lightweight and former UFC star Olivier Aubin-Mercier’s season opener against Natan Schulte earlier this year was most certainly a close one.

Though Aubin-Mercier (14-5) walked away with the split decision win, Schulte himself is still of the opinion that he won the fight. To OAM, it’s a strange question, because at the end of the day, the outcome is set in stone.

“It’s such a weird question, because he feels he won that fight, I feel I won that fight. Two judges felt I won that fight, and one judge felt he won that fight. Who gives a sh*t?” Aubin-Mercier questioned during Wednesday’s PFL 4 media day. “Who gives a sh*t, seriously, who gives a sh*t? I think it could have been any one of us who won this fight, it was a tight fight, but at the end of the day, I won. He had some fights in the PFL that people thought he lost, but he won the million dollars instead— so who cares? To be honest, who cares?”

“The Canadian Gangster,” who joined the PFL officially last season after signing on earlier in the pandemic, appears ready to move on. “If you win, if you lose, it’s done, it’s done. Now he has to look at his next fight, and if he wants to fight me again this season, he needs to probably win in the first round. I think it’s useless to think about that, it’s useless to me and it’s useless to him. It’s not useless for you guys [the media], that’s for sure, but for us, I think it’s useless.”

Instead, Olivier Aubin-Mercier is looking ahead to his next fight, at PFL 4 in Atlanta this Friday. There, he’ll take on last year’s lightweight champion, Raush Manfio. Only, it’s a fight that puzzles the Canadian, in the sense that he’s unsure of why it was booked in the first place.

“I think it’s a weird match-up, but at the end of the day, I’m going to fight everybody in the division. All the best guys, I’m going to fight them since it’s a tournament. I don’t care if I’m fighting them right now or after,” Aubin-Mercier explained. “I do feel a little bit bad for Manfio, since I think he deserves to do the [playoff] tournament, but other than that, who cares?”

In this case, it seems OAM himself just might. “It’s just, the thing I got, I think the four best guys were me, [Natan] Schulte, Manfio, and [Clay] Collard, and I think all four of us should have done the tournament,” he continued. “But I don’t think the best guys are going to be in the tournament this year, since I’m fighting Manfio, and I fought Schulte already. I think it’s a weird match-up, like I said. I don’t understand really why there’s four winners that fight winners, and one of them fights a loser. I don’t want to take anything away from the loser, but I think every winner should fight a loser. It’s not fair if that’s not the case.”

It should work the same in reverse, he added. “The same thing goes for the losers. I think they should all fight winners. Now, there’s just one of them who fights a winner, which is Stevie Ray. And not only does he fight a winner, he fights after everybody. So I think it’s kind of unfair for him, I think it’s unfair for Myles [Price], the one who fought [Anthony] Pettis; I think Myles is in the worst spot. I just saw him, just before, he’s a pretty big guy, and to make his weight twice in what, a month, month and a half? It’s pretty brutal.”

Price and Pettis fought at PFL 3 on May 6, making it barely a month and a half between fights for Price, who is in action this Friday.

“I don’t think it’s fair for him, but you know, life is unfair, and we still have the opportunity. I think we are lucky to have this opportunity with the PFL,” Aubin-Mercier finished.

A million dollars once again awaits the winner of the PFL season at year’s end — that’s a pretty big opportunity indeed.

Watch the full PFL 4 media day appearance by Olivier Aubin-Mercier above. The event goes down this Friday, June 17, 2022 in Atlanta, GA.