“Bellator is dead”, PFL Makes Changes To Their Format

Bellator 300 gloves Credit: Eddie Law/Cageside Press

It seems that the demise of Bellator is complete, and the Professional Fighter’s League is making some rather big changes to their format.

Ariel Helwani broke the news on his show on Monday.

“Right now I can tell you, on Monday, January 13th, at 1:20 pm Eastern time: Bellator is dead. Bellator as we know it is no more,” he said on his show.

“Bellator is dead. You will not see Bellator events anymore.”

PFL acquired Bellator in late 2023 with the mindset that they would run both promotions simultaneously with different types of events. Just over a year later that clearly hasn’t worked.

Bellator will now go by a new name “PFL Champions Series” which will have the traditional divisional titles. They will be separate from the PFL tournament which will have it’s own tournament champions. No word as to how those Champions Series title fights will be determined.

The points system will also be removed and will be more “grand prix style”. The points system was implemented to give MMA a traditional sports feel between a ‘regular season’ and ‘playoffs’. Points would determine standings and playoff seeding. That will no longer be the case.

“The PFL season format is no more. What it is now is somewhere in the range of 6-8 weight classes being featured, 8 fighters, 2 alternates, single-elimination tournament,” he said.

“There’s no more standings. There’s no more points or anything like that.”

The prize money for winning the PFL tournament has also changed. No longer will fighters be going for the $1 million prize, which to be fair had fighter purses subtracted, which didn’t really make it a million dollar prize.

Instead tournament champions will win $500k on top of whatever purses they win on the way to the final.

MMA has seen promotions come and go. Strikeforce, WEC, PRIDE, Affliction, Elite XC among others are just a memory now. Bellator joins those ranks today.

“Bellator as we know it is dead. From the Bjorn (Rebney) era, to the Scott Coker era, to the PFLattor era. It is no more,” Helwani emphasized.