Bubba Jenkins enters the PFL 2022 World Championship with a shot at a million dollars on the line, and a fresh foe ahead of him in Brendan Loughnane.
“I’m feeling great, man. I’m excited about the opportunity, I’m excited about it being at Madison Square Garden,” Jenkins (19-5), who anchors the co-main event against Loughnane this Friday, told us. “You can’t get no better than that, and it being PFL’s first Pay-Per-View, I’m pretty pumped about it.”
With six million dollars on the line in the six tournament finales, Jenkins is clearly enthused ahead of his first PFL final. “I’m hoping to get my portion of that, and it’s going to be a good night. I think that PFL has done the right thing with trying to sell it like they have, and putting me as the co-main event was the best move they could have done, because we’re going to get some numbers out of it.”
As for the money, if he wins, he plans to invest it. “We’re going to do the right things, invest it in the right places, talk to the right people” was one way of putting it. Another, more poetically, was “you’re going to see me shine to the end of time.”
Training camp, meanwhile, has been business as usual despite the high stakes attached to the fight. “We didn’t change anything. No new friends, no new places, no new strategies, no new nothing. It’s always been Batman vs. Batman. We just make sure that we can beat us, and if we can beat the person in the mirror than we’re going to come out with a great victory.”
Things with Brendan Loughnane appear to have gotten a little personal in the build-up to this one, meanwhile. While that’s to be expected in any fist fight, the higher stakes and chance to provide for their families has only heightened that when it comes to Jenkins vs. Loughnane.
“He said that I’m a three round fighter, and because I’ve been in the PFL and I haven’t been in the championship, I’ve only needed to be a three-round fighter. All of the fights for PFL, they’ve only asked me to do for three rounds,” said Jenkins. “This is the first five round fight they’re asking me to do, and therefore we’ll show up as the five round fighter. So his little ‘Bubba Jenkins is only a three-round fighter‘ is obvious because I only needed to be a three-rounded fighter.”
“Just because he said that, I plan on knocking his ass out in the fourth, just to one-up him on his little three-round fighter thing,” Jenkins added.
Watch our full interview with PFL 2022 featherweight finalist Bubba Jenkins above. The event takes place this Friday, November 25, 2022 in New York, NY.
