To hear PFL chairman Donn Davis tell it, Noche UFC at The Sphere this past Saturday won’t be the most-expensive MMA event of 2024.
That honor would belong to his organization’s Oct. 19 pay-per-view headlined by lineal heavyweight champion and former UFC titleholder Francis Ngannou against 2023 PFL season winner Renan Ferreira.
“The cost of this fight is astronomical,” Davis told The Post recently via video call. “[UFC CEO] Dana White talks about his 20 million [dollar] Sphere event; this is more. Fighters here make more. The card here that will be announced has more big fights coming. This cost to us is more than his cost at The Sphere.”
Dubbed “Battle of the Giants” in a throwback to theatrically named MMA events of the 2000s, the fight card in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, marks the return of Ngannou from his boxing sabbatical, as well as the first time the Cameroonian competes in his primary sport since parting ways with the UFC as a free agent in January 2023 — and as the promotion’s champion until that point.
Those two bouts in the ring — a star-making, narrow defeat via decision to then-lineal heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury that defied virtually all expectations for his boxing debut in Oct. 2023 followed by a one-sided, second-round KO loss to former unified champion Anthony Joshua in March — netted reported eight-figure paydays for Ngannou, a more common purse range for heavyweight boxers than mixed martial artists.
With Ngannou getting a taste of the elevated fight purses for pugilists, some fans and media members wondered if the 38-year-old would stick to boxing.
But Davis assures there was no concern Ngannou, who signed with PFL last May, would ditch MMA and, the PFL co-founder said, compete on the company’s planned pay-per-view event this year.
“Zero worry,” Davis assured, as he has consistently throughout Ngannou’s MMA sabbatical. “… For those who really know Francis Ngannou as a man, as a person, and what he’s all about, he would have zero worry. The things he commits to, he commits to. The drive he has, he will accomplish. The commitments he has to himself, he will do. And that was why there was zero worry.”
Though Davis did not reveal the purse for Ngannou in his PFL debut, he noted that, per Ngannou’s wish, opponent Ferreira is guaranteed $1 million with the opportunity to double that with a win over the ex-UFC heavyweight king.
But fighting in either sport was not chief in Ngannou’s mind in April when his 15-month-old son, Kobe, died of unpublicized causes.
Ngannou did not hold back his anguish during a series of social media posts revealing his family’s tragedy in the ensuing days, and he opened up on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in late June.
Davis, understandably, did not share anything said in confidence when asked about Ngannou’s mentality approaching this fight, scheduled for less than six months after suffering every parent’s worst nightmare, but he expressed belief that his star attraction is ready to get back to work and fight.
“It was very, very painful, but part of that healing is getting back to life and getting back to having impact in the world in the way that you believe you can,” Davis said. “And I think he’s on that journey. He’s ready for that. And I think this Oct. 19 is a positive move forward. It’s helpful for him in what was obviously a terrible, terrible, painful aspect that will never go away.”
While more fights are yet to be announced for the event, the co-main event between Bellator women’s featherweight champion and MMA legend Cris Cyborg against two-time PFL season winner Larissa Pacheco has been one of the most anticipated fights the organization could put on since it acquired Bellator last fall.
Originally expected to be part of PFL’s first pay-per-view event of this year, PFL vs. Bellator: Champs in February, scheduling it proved trickier than had been the case in that event’s other champion vs. champion matchups.
Davis and Cyborg have not always been on the same page publicly, dating back to before the sale.
Since then, Davis’ more optimistic public tone regarding the booking of Cyborg vs. Pacheco — the most-anticipated women’s fight at 145 pounds since Cyborg fought and lost to Amanda Nunes in the UFC in December 2018 for her only setback of the past 19 years — had frequently been met with contradictory retorts from the women’s MMA pioneer.
When pressed on the current state of affairs between the two parties, Davis stopped short of agreeing that the parties are on better terms but was optimistic that, with more time under the PFL banner, she will come to appreciate her new promotional home and that “we’re all in the same trench.”
“I think she’ll get that a lot more a year from now than [right] now, and she’ll get that a lot more today than a year ago,” Davis said. “The more fighters who are here long, and the more fighters who get exposed to our company, they understand how hard we’re fighting to build something for them.”
Cyborg, like Ngannou, is making her PFL debut in October.
In most cases, that means adjusting to a restricted form of MMA that disallows elbow strikes — PFL’s primary regular-season format eschews the strikes to limit cuts that could potentially throw a monkey wrench into the busy season schedule.
Fear not, hardcore fight fans: Elbows are fully in play for Battle of the Giants.
“Unequivocal yes,” Davis assured before adding a cryptic, but hopeful, tease for the future. “And also, I encourage fans to watch the evolution of PFL for surprises, maybe in 2025, on that.”
Davis added that there has been consideration for permitting elbow strikes to this season’s PFL championship event, targeted for later this year after Battle of the Giants and taking place internationally for the first time — and targeting a shift to alternating years between within and outside of the United States for the season-capping event.
“Stay tuned,” he said. “I’ve often said we’ve led in many, many innovations, and we don’t want to be right; we want to win. What is the right answer in super fights? What is the right answer in championship-ending events? We’re reevaluating that now, and I would pay close attention to future announcements.”