Las Vegas — PFL Exec Peter Murray was on hand at The Theater at Virgin Hotels on Friday night, taking in action that saw returning lightweight champ Olivier Aubin-Mercier spoil the debut of free agent signing Shane Burgos.
Murray doesn’t believe the setback will tarnish Burgos too much.
“Shane came over as a major top prospect. That one fight doesn’t define Shane,” Murray told media outlets including Cageside Press following the PFL 3 main card. “He’s now taking on the season, he’s taking on the format. I think you’re going to see a different Shane in the second fight. OAM is certainly solidifying his position as a champion, so I think that fight for me was one of the best of the night.”
Still, as Murray later put it, in the PFL, “the competition is no joke. Some of the best fighters on the planet are in the PFL, and you’re seeing that. So when we develop talent from within the system and then fighters come over from different organizations, it’s eye-opening in terms of the caliber of athletes that we have. And then the challenge of the format. It really is one of the toughest tests in MMA.”
Fighters like Stevie Ray (Scotland), Brendan Loughnane (England), and Olivier Aubin-Mercier (Canada) have been leading the charge for the PFL to visit foreign soil. They did so last year, hitting England and Wales.
“We’re really focused on global expansion, so beyond what we’re doing here in the U.S., we’re really proud that this year we’ve launched four franchises— we’ve at least announced four. We have the Challenger Series, we have the season format, we’ve announced and we have big plans for PPV in our super-fights division,” Murray said on that front. “Jake Paul will make his debut in MMA. Just this week he announced his next event or fight in boxing, against Nate [Diaz], and what’s to come is his debut in MMA.”
Murray also confirmed there would be a PPV event prior to Jake Paul getting into the cage. On the international front, Murray added that “there will be six regional leagues outside the U.S. within three years, and we’ll be making an announcement coming I would say in the next two months on where the second one will be. It’s already put in place, and we’ll launch that in 2024.”
The regional leagues are expected to provide “a pathway to PFL global to compete against the likes of talent that’s here in Vegas or on the global stage, and to become world champions,” he added.
While OAM and Loughnane want to see the PFL go global for this year’s playoffs, Murray revealed they will take place stateside. “The playoffs this year will be in the United States for sure. Internationally, for the championship, we’re having conversations outside the U.S., different opportunities.”
Still, the PFL exec recognizes that PFL athletes aren’t just fighting for themselves, or for titles, but “very much they’re fighting for country. They’re representing their countries. We have 28 nations represented on the roster, and not only do they want to be champion, world champion for themselves, but for their countries, and they’re very passionate like OAM. Bring the show to Montreal, or bring the show to Scotland. And you’ll see us stage events in different parts of the countries, not just our regional leagues but we’ll be taking the world championship to different markets around the world, we’ll be taking super-fights, our PPV division fights to different markets around the world. So more to come there.”
Watch the full 2023 PFL 3 media scrum with Peter Murray above.
Correction: Article updated to reflect that Peter Murrary spoke to the media following the PFL 3 main card.
