For Brendan Loughnane, the 2022 PFL featherweight champ, the approach to this year’s post-season is simple: stay the course.
Asked by Cageside Press in a recent interview whether he was doing anything different this time out, Loughnane (29-5) said simply “No, nothing at all. Exactly the same. Same coaches, same place, same ethos, same diet, everything’s the same. Coming off two TKO’s this year, looking better than ever, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Loughnane enters his semifinal fight against Kai Kamaka III at PFL Washington this Friday having missed the playoffs entirely in 2023. While that might have been a disappointing turn of events for many fighters and no doubt was for Loughnane himself at the time, he’s found a silver lining in it all.
The PFL season, he noted, is “a marathon, not a sprint. This thing starts in April and ends in November.” After competing in the tournament for three years, “to be able to have some time off was nice. Going out in the preliminary rounds, I got to have ten months where I didn’t fight. That’s the longest I’ve had off in a long time. I got to regroup, do a few personal things that I needed to do, and come back to this season fresh. And this is the result.”
The opposite side of the tournament bracket this year finds Gabriel Braga, a sentimental fan favorite whose father was tragically killed early this year, facing off with Timur Khizriev. At the start of the season, Loughnane vs. Braga was a popular prediction for the 2024 featherweight final.
“I’d love to fight either of the two guys in the final, but I’ve made the mistake in the past of looking past opponents, so I’m not looking past Kai Kamaka and what he brings to the table,” Loughnane said, asked about who he might potentially see come November. “So let’s get that out of the way, whoever wins that side, I’ll be ready for either of them gentlemen.”
As for a prediction for Braga vs. Khizriev, “Tough fight, very very tough fight on both sides,” Loughnane admitted. “You’ve got a world class striker versus a world class wrestler. It’s whoever can implement on the night.”
Watch our full interview with PFL Washington’s Brendan Loughnane above.
