MMA Fighting - Town Hall w/ PFL's Jonathan Coachman

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

PFL spokesperson and broadcaster Jonathan Coachman joins the channel to discuss PFL Africa, and answer viewer questions about anything and everything, hosted by MMA Fighting's Mike Heck. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oh, there, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you're all doing absolutely fantastic. And welcome to a brand new edition of Town Hall, live here on the MAA Fighting YouTube channel. I am Mike Kack. Thank you for being here for, this is actually the fourth edition of the Town Hall. And today, this is actually the third time we'll be doing this.

We're talking all things, professional Fighters League. We're past the midway point of 2025. The PFL has changed some things up in regards to format. We've seen some stars emerge. Other stars have left the PFL this year. A lot has happened. And also, the PFL is a massive card coming up on July 19th. Next Saturday, PFL Africa. The PFL cage makes its way to Cape Town and features the return of Dakota Ditche, Johnny Eblen, A.J. McKee, Corey Anderson, and a whole host of other terrific fighters. So a lot to discuss with this man joining me today. And I have to tell you from a personal level, this is a gentleman. This is a gentleman.

that I've been following for quite some time as a huge fan of the WWE attitude era. This individual I've seen do so much in the broadcasting world from pro wrestling to golf to boxing to MMA coverage. And now he's sort of been positioned as, well, we're going to find out what he's being positioned as. Let's say hello to the man who will be answering your questions today from the PFL, Jonathan Coachman, the coach.

There he is. Coach, how are good? man I am great it's great to be on here for the town hall and I got to tell you as my career has evolved one of the things I always wanted to do was when I had like 30 years left I feel like I have 30 really good years left is you know when you're on TV I've done Sports Center I've done Monday Night Raw I've done a lot of big things but I want to leave a legacy I want to leave when I'm done say you know what I really helped that place elevate themselves and get to a whole new level so when I started with the PFL a few years ago just doing betting with the and Parker. I said to myself, this is a place where I can really make a difference, where I can really help and we can draw a line in the sand. So Mike, I'm anxious to talk everything, PFL, to go back and forth, see what the audience has. But understanding that we want to listen to the fan base and we're looking into the future. And I think we've got a bright future ahead. Yes. And first of all, very much appreciate you doing this. And as I was putting this all together, I was trying to figure out

your job title because you're sort of all over the place. Like you do a lot of the pre-fight stuff and the broadcast work and the interviews. You're all over the PFL social media pages. But then after these events are over, we see you at the post-fight press conferences. And I was told when I was putting together the thumbnail, like, what is his job title? And I was told PFL spokesperson works. But if someone were to ask you, coach, what is your job for the PFL? How do you answer that from your perspective? It's funny because I'm always going to be transparent and honest with you, Mike. And this is the one thing that we fight about all the time. I have what I would like to be called and they said, oh, you're a social media advisor.

You're a spokesperson. And I've always said this because I also live in the world of we understand other places exist. I said, I would love to be the Dana White of the PFL. And that's okay saying that because years ago when he started, he was the guy that to me, Mike, there's got to be one face or one voice that's always there because the fighters are always changing. And as much as we want fighters that are here for five, ten, maybe even 15 years, there's got to be a name and a face that's always there that people can say, oh, that's the PFL. When you see Dana White, you go, oh, that's the UFC. So I don't know what that title is yet.

We'll go with spokesperson, but the vision I have for what I want to do is just help lift up. We've got so many great people that we brought in. People from the WWE have come over. I think you've seen how much better our production is digitally on social media. So I would say they like to go with PFL Insider. I'm like, an insider is somebody that works for ESPN or whatever. So call me what you want. Spokesperson is fine, but we'll say from the PFL.

How about that? So if I were to say that you're sort of positioned as the promotional face of the organization, because you said, is that like a fair title? Would you go with that? 100%. It's always going to be me. That's why I do the press conferences. Because also we want to start to position, Mike, for people to understand, we understand this is entertainment.

And we want to start doing stuff that nobody else has done. I say in meetings all the time, if UFC or BKFC or somebody like that, if they're doing this, that's usually a traditional way. I want to do the opposite. I want to run in the opposite direction because I want to be different. And you can have, I would love to do storylines within what we're doing. We've got a lot of guys from America's top. You can do gyms against each other. To me, there's a lot of ideas that have never been tried that I want to try moving forward.

You're speaking my language coach. I love that. And, you know, there's a lot going on right now. PFL Africa coming up next weekend. I'm sure going to get a ton of questions about that car from the peeps. But as I said earlier, we're past the midway point of 2025. We've gone through the first two rounds of the tournaments. The season championship fights, we're all set for next month with multiple events.

and we've seen fighters make some big leaps in terms of popularity and notoriety this year. We saw a lot of big name fighters part ways with the promotions, guys like Patricia Pitbull and Aaron Pico and Patchy Mix and some others. All that sort of weighing on the scale here, how would you personally, and I guess I'll say this realistically, sure, on the internal goals and also just community reaction that you've seen, how would you grade the first half of 2025 for the PFL?

I would say the first half has been an A plus, and I'll give you several reasons for that. I was not completely on board with the World Tournament when we announced it because I've been a part of the last three seasons. I really felt like it would take away from the excitement of the fights because the fighters would approach the fight saying all I've got to do is win and advance. It's been just the opposite of that. It's been, I want to go in, limit the damage, try to end things as quickly as possible so that I know I only have six or eight weeks until my next fight. it's three fights from April all the way to August. The amount of finishes. In our first four weeks, 32 fights, we had 21 finishes. Mike, you know, that's a ridiculous 70% finish rate. I don't care where you're starting to stop and that's unbelievable. But the thing that I've

been most surprised with, which is why I tell people all the time, don't read headlines. Most of the time you see a headline on a website or what I call a dirt sheet. And it's usually for a click and not necessarily because it's accurate. And a lot of the early season stuff that we dealt with with some of the former fighters who we said, hey, you're lying about what you're making because there were some things done during the sale. And so I went on social media,

and that's kind of Mike when I took this role and I said, let me handle it. Because normally when you call somebody's bluff, they usually don't have anything to say. And those fighters were like, hey, if you can go get that somewhere else, then go get it somewhere else. But when we're drawing a line in the sand

and we have to change how we've always done things, we have a lot of people that believe in this, young fighters that buy into themselves. I've met with a lot of the names that have won already. I said, listen, if you're successful and you buy into your own brand, we will push you to the moon. So, Mike, have you not seen a Dalton, a Thad Gene?

I can throw a couple more names out at you that you've seen on their social media, boom, boom, boom. And then you see our social media, then take them. We have weekly segments, coaches corner, we have coaches conversations. We have an incredible digital team. We have over a million followers on X and on our YouTube page. We have to use those platforms to our advantage, which we've never done before. So all that being said, I'd say it's an A plus with where we were and where we are right now in July.

Yeah, I think one of the big things is, and I know other analysts and people who cover the sport have said the same thing is like, what is PFL's identity? They're trying to figure it out. And you guys, I think it's pretty fair to say you're, you want to avoid being UFC light. Because I think that was sort of the problem that Bellator had was outside of the Grand Prix tournaments that they would do. There was nothing that was really differentiating themselves from this. And the old season format was very confusing to a lot of people. So I think obviously shifting over to. more of a tournament format, more of the Grand Prix format. It just made things a lot more exciting. I think the broadcasting and, you know, the delay between fights, I think a lot of that has improved as well. And like you said earlier, some of these UFC cards are slogs. Like, they're just really sloggy right now.

And you guys, to your credit and to the fighter's credits, we're seeing some fun cards. Like these world tournament cards have been really fun to watch. My one knock, and I know it's not really PSA, FFL's fault, we got to stop with the 11 p.m. main card starts. All right. Let me start right there. Mike, let me ask you a question. If you have the ability to, because we're growing, and this is what I tell people all the time, we've been around for seven years, okay? If this was UFC after seven years in 2008, would they have gotten seven o'clock start times on ESPN?

When you're negotiating these deals, there are TV windows. They can give you an eight o'clock window. on ESPN Plus, or you take an 11 o'clock window on ESPN. Well, you're going to take that ESPN because it's in so many more homes. When you sit in your living room, you turn on ESPN comes on. ESPN Plus, you got to get on your iPad and you got to look it up here. And it's just a far smaller audience. So I agree with you. I would love to have an 8 o'clock start every single time.

But as we grow in a year or two and we negotiate new TV deals and hopefully we stay on ESPN, that's going to be a possibility. But right now to have all of our fights on ESPN or ESPN2, that's a big deal no matter the time. So that would be my answer to that because that's just what they offer. And I think that will change with the popularity of what we're doing. And I love that you say UFC light because we've been in a lot of meetings. And I tell the fighters this and I tell the people that are working at PFL,

we don't want to be the organization that simply signs former big names. We want to be the organization that builds our own big names. A Dalton Rasta, a Thad Gene. If you get them when they're 21 or 22, and all of a sudden they start to win, and it doesn't even have to be a perfect record, give me some bangers. I mean, if that gene would have lost to Jason Jackson,

would that have hurt his career? No, because it was a super close razor, or fight. I say all the time, you can win when you lose. You can also lose when you win. You've got to be exciting. And that's the one thing that when I'm sitting down with these fighters, the week of the fights, I tell them. And I'll be honest with you, it helps. My history helps. A lot of these guys are pro wrestling fans. So when they walk in the room, we're just chatting it up before we do our interviews, that kind of breaks the ice. So then I can tell them, listen, based off of my expertise in the world of wrestling where it's promotion, promotion, promotion,

this is the prize fight game. And if you're a fighter and you want to make a half a million dollars a fight or a million dollars a fight, you've got to earn that. You've got to become a person, a fighter that people want to tune in to see. That doesn't happen on fight three or fight four. And that's what we were trying to explain to some of these Bellator fighters that put up a false narrative based off of the number that was in front of them that wasn't accurate. And we're trying to change and get back to where the salaries are in compliance with where they are in their careers.

That gene could make millions in his career. But we want to make that here. Dalton could make millions in his career. We want him to make that here. And the other part of our identity to make ourselves different is to create the Champions League of MMA. I'm a big soccer guy. and there are great teams all around the world, not just the United States. So it's not going to happen overnight, but over the course of the next three to five years,

we'll have the entire landscape set up. So you know if you win the world tournament, you become a number one contender of a champion series champion. And then as we add events around the world, eventually you've got eight of the biggest stars from all of these different PFLs. They come together, have their own little mini tournament. that's the future of what we're doing that nobody else is and that's fine we're focused on our highway mike we're not focused on anybody else and that's that's music to my ears as someone who because you know and i want to get to the people i don't want to commendee this entire

thing because the people want their questions answered as well but when people say things about pfl especially like us when we're critical it's out of i'm not going to say it's out of love but it's we want you guys to do well like even if we're negative at the end of the day, like, the UFC is who they are right now. And they can sort of rest on their laurels at the moment because they don't feel any heat from any sort of competitors right now. So we need PFL to come along. We need another organization to come along to at least challenge them in some ways

to do other things rather than just throw darts at the wall and build an apex card. Like, you guys growing your brand and doing what you're doing and building excitement, like that does it. It might take some time, but that'll do it. And that's what we all want as fans. And Mike, I literally was talking to Don Davis last week in Chicago. And because I do this every day, I have a daily show on Prime Video, Direct TV.

So I'm in it every single day. And I told Don, I said, Don, I said, we got to stop reading the negative comments on social media because I did an experiment. And I went back and any negative that's on me or whatever. And I never had somebody over 100 followers insult me. A lot of times people that comment on social media, Mike, they're people that have a lot of time on their hands because they're not doing anything. They're not professionally out there moving and shaken. And I said, we got to stop paying attention to those because the people that we want are the exciting,

successful, really creative people. And I said, Don, I do all these interviews. I do the town halls like this. People want us to succeed. You've got to stop reading the obligatory, oh, PFL or Don, or it doesn't know what they're doing. and it's usually a person that has no clue about the MMA business or what we're trying to do. And if you put blinders on, you say, okay, this is where we're going, this is what we're trying to do. Once you get there, people like you, Mike, people like other journalists that I've met with,

you all want this to succeed because just like in the world of pro wrestling, the more viable organizations that there are, the more fighters get to earn a living, and the more MMA fans get to consume good fights. So less organizations is not a good thing. That's a bad thing. And we understand that. 100%. All right.

Let's go to the peeps. I could ask you a billion questions all day. Super Chatters, you guys get to the front of the line, but we'll start with Zach. Kind of building on what you were just talking about, Jonathan. What can the PFL do better to keep top talent happy? We have recently seen some notable names leave and join the UFC. And in the past year, there has been many top fighters voicing frustration.

So you've sort of touched on this a little bit, but sort of expounding on your point. No question about it. If you talk to Dalton or Mondo Guineeras, for example, he lost, he had an injury and he came up to me last week in Chicago. He says, coach, you're the guy that I need to talk to. I want to be on one of those cards in August. I had an injury.

I need to show the PFL what I'm really about. And he lost in the semifinals. The talent that Zach is talking about, those are guys that were sitting around willing to complain. Pitbull was a perfect example. A lot of things were done in the contracts that you guys, the fan, did not know about when the sale went through. So when these guys weren't getting fights, it's because the money didn't make sense. You're not going to pay somebody $300,000 if they're not a $300,000 draw. So we had to

sit back and I told Don, Don, Don, give me all the information. I'll handle it. I'll talk about it on social media because when you're getting a narrative from one side, it's always going to be their view. And for me, I'm brand new in this role. But when you have a fighter who on paper, $700,000 a fight, I would argue right now, there might be, and I'm including UFC, might be eight to 15 fighters that are worth that much in any one fight. There's very few. And so if there's a lack of star power, let's build our own from a financial standpoint that makes sense.

So when you see those unhappy tweets, they're unhappy from one side. Now you're starting to see all of those names that complained. Where are they? What did they do? We called their bluff. And we also want to bill with the guys that are super, super positive. You talk to Thad Gene. He never wants to fight anywhere else.

That's how we keep him happy. Push him. Help him with his brand. Do the different things. I know that Ian Parker is down there and he's doing stories with all these different fighters that are moving on in the world tournament. We're trying, Mike, to make people realize, in the world of prize fighting, just like in boxing.

When a boxer used to beat better and better and better competition, their purses went up, their popularity went up. When did we stop including great fights and winning as a prerequisite for who we're pushing to the moon? And that's something we're trying to do right now. So there's a lot of happy fighters. They're just not out there, Zach, tweeting it on social media, but I promise you, I meet with all of them.

and we've weeded out a lot of the guys who complained because on paper they were just getting overpaid. Thank you for the question, Zach. Let's continue on. Shout out to the last stand. Have you guys thought about doing more sit downs between two opponents to create hype? So I will say you guys did a great job with the Thad Gene Jason Jackson build. I mean, sometimes as a promotion, you catch lightning in a bottle because Thad Gene, for the hardcore fans, is a guy that a lot of people have had their eye on for a while. And to see him as an alternate, people are a little bit surprised by that. But with the door, when there's a knock on the door, you answered the damn thing.

Boy, did he? And look at where he's at right now. He's about to fight for $500,000 at a potential title shot. So, and you guys did this, you did the sit down with that. And Jason, there was a little bit of heat there. That first face off got pretty nasty. And it was just a great build to the fight. So will we be seeing more of those?

Well, we did Dalton and Aaron Jeffrey last week in Chicago. And that was actually Dalton's idea because he saw the Thad Gene Jason Jackson. And Dalton is a student of the game. And I was DMing with him on IG a lot because he was asking questions. And this is the type of fighter that I've told all the executives that we got to put our money and our promotional machine behind. Because Dalton was like, what can I do? How can I make myself stand out? I can embrace being a heel.

I can embrace the trash talk. And Aaron Jeffrey even said, I like that he's doing it because it's not my style. And he was very, very, what's the word? It was awkward because Aaron Jeffrey is not a confrontational guy. Dalton, one of the best promotion possible. And he was not even in the main event. So we gave it to him. This week, because we're all remote on Coach's Corner, which comes out on Thursday,

we have Johnny Eblen and Van Stenis on Coach's Corner, you see it here, at the same time. Now, it's not the same as sitting in the same room, but 1,000 percent, that is something that we're going to start doing. And I would probably say that in the three events coming up for the World Tournament, we'll have at least one sit down with both opponents together, at least one every single week, yes. Being in that room, and obviously you've been part of,

the WWE and you've been a part of some backstage skirmishes. Is there a part of you that is a little concerned that things might get a little heated or I assume you guys are somewhat prepared for that if it does happen. Well, it's funny you should mention that. When we used to do it in a WWE, it's because I did a lot of those and there are, there were a lot of guys that legitimately did not like each other. Um, because where your position is how much money you made. This is similar. But I'll be honest with you. Neither sit down. did we have extra security in the room, Mike? We didn't.

I guess I didn't even think about it. And also, these guys are not stupid. If you and I, Mike, were fighting and we're fighting for whatever, a chance to make $500,000. Why in the world would you ever jeopardize that by getting into a fight in a room and a hotel three days before you're fighting for half a million dollars? Now, it's happened, but these guys are not idiots. And also, I am meeting with them. I am telling them person by person, male or female, this is the prize fighting game. And if you don't sell your fight, guess who's going to?

Nobody. And that's what they have to buy into. And we literally had a fight. I can't remember the name right now. We had a fight. I think it was on the early card. And it was two fighters, and it was an awful fight. It was boring.

It went the distance. And we had preached so much backstage about if you're exciting, just because you lose in the world tournament does not mean your season or year is over. You can still fight in June. You can still fight in August. And we proved that. We had guys that lost in April that fought in June because they were exciting. And we literally told one of the fighters in the cage,

don't count on getting a call anytime soon. Because you cannot go out for 15 minutes, push somebody against a. edge of the cage and think that we're going to book you the next time. We want to fight. There's enough fighters out there and we're going to find them. And we've got the right people looking for them. But when you get your opportunity, Mike, you got to step up and give me a firefight. Stand in there and bang, because that's what fight fans want to see.

Speaking of fighters that have grown their brand, here's a question from our guy, lazy bed. The one burning question amongst much of the PFL fan base is simple. supposing she's victorious of PFL Africa, how quickly and how often can we see Dakota Dichiva back in action? So somebody that you have built up, Jonathan,

throughout this entire process, she's become a big star. She beat the hell out of Tyler Santos. What a performance. Anyone that was doubting her were no longer doubting her. She's now one of the top ranked 125ers in the world and a lot of people's global rankings. But she's one of those fighters

that people want to see compete early and often. So she is, fighting Samika Naba. It's a big fight. But if she goes out and wins, how quickly do you hope she can turn around? I mean, injuries can happen. But if all works out, great, perfect world scenario, how do we handle Dakota with the win? So I talked to her last week. I've seen her in person two different times and everybody is handled differently. But for the level of star that she is, she would love to fight four times a year. I talked to her last week and she 1,000% wants to fight in the tournament next year. Now, what we're laying out is a scenario where the champion series over the course of the fall,

we're going to have eight different champions that we crown. What that's going to do is now we have, we can now set the table, so to speak, and have eight different champions in the same eight weight divisions that we have in the world tournament. So then the eight winners of the world tournament will then fight their respective champion as the number one contender. So that would make her next fight pretty obvious that before the end of the year, we would hope to get her in the smart cage because the world tournament is in August. So that'd be plenty of time for her fighting at the end of July to fight in November and or December.

Whether or not the fighter ops, I can't speak for them, are going to put her into the World Tournament. My thought process is if you have a big star and they want to do something that's within the financial realm of what we're doing, why not let her do it? That would cause for a great storyline. It would make the other seven in that division really step up and say, guess what? If I could beat her within this tournament, but then we would have to come and figure out, well, what do we do if she's in the tournament and she is the champion from the champion series? So there's still a lot to figure out. But I would love, and we would love to see Dakota at least, at least three times a year in the smart cage.

And I know she wants at least three times a year. And I do want to say this publicly. She might be the easiest star, WWE or MMA that I've ever worked with in my life. Her middle name is yes. And a lot of fighters can learn from how she carries herself, what she does, how she says it. And then when she gets in there, she's an absolute. beast. And she understands, Mike, that in order to get all this other stuff, she has to be successful in the cage. That's where it begins and that's where it ends and she does.

Any comparisons from a WWE perspective, like someone who's a rising star that was obviously not as easy as Dakota to work with, but somewhat, somewhat similar that maybe she reminds you of from your WWE days. You know who she kind of reminds me of because she's into fashion and from a looks perspective, it's a little bit different, you know, because she loves to, you know, she does a lot of fashion photo shoots. And most fighters are not fashion plates. I'm not saying it very well. But Trish Stratis kind of reminds me.

And Trish and I started one day apart, you know, 20 some odd years ago. And she became a fitness model who became legitimate in the WWRink because she was tough. And I think sometimes when you look at something. somebody and go, oh, they love clothes, they love to dress up, they love to wear heels. They can't be a killer. She is a killer in the cage. So I would say that that's probably the comparison or a Charlotte Flair in more recent times because no matter what somebody says to her, we saw her in the tournament.

Every time something came out, Mike, what was it? Well, you know, we don't like her because or she's this. And what does she do every time? and that creates a heel character. And anytime somebody tells me, coach, you can't do characters in MMA, I call bullshit on that. Absolutely you can and you need to and we will.

She is a heel at her core, but in real life, she's so easy to deal with. Yeah. People who don't think that there's roots of pro wrestling in MMA are absolutely insane. I've been saying this forever. It's just the way that is.

Lazybed is back with another question. I think it's a, it's a popular one that I get on multiple shows. If we're to address the elephant in the room, there seems to be a common theme amongst the fan base of, quote, I didn't know there was even PFL on this week. How do we change that going forward? Now, obviously, you guys are doing a lot on social media, so you're trying, but what's sort of the long-term plan here? Well, there's a lot of things now. We just launched our, our PFL app. and we've had a lot of fights around the world that fans of the United States just simply couldn't see.

So before now, it was, oh, they only have 10 events a year in a 52 week year, obviously. And this is also where I asked the fan base to have a little bit of patience. It's been kind of through the first six years, things were kind of all over the place. Yeah, you've got the million dollar champions. You've got this good storyline. But there was never any real direction. we brought in a lot of good people that have only been here for a few months. And I would encourage people to think about their own jobs,

how much really gets done in three or four months. You got to give it time. We got to be able to lay out everything that we want to do. So in a year from now, there is an answer for everything because we didn't know before the champion series was announced. We didn't know what we were going to do with the winners of the world tournament. And we had to sit down as a team and figure that out. The other part is you've got to start just pounding and just you've seen how much we are posting now.

And you use social media. You use platforms like my personal show. You use, we have a stadium deal, stadiums in over 100 million homes on Amazon Prime, Direct TV, YouTube TV. So we never had those deals before. We now have better TV times on ESPN. And so you just got a pound, pound, pound. I can tell you that in Nashville, when I landed, everybody knew that. we were there. And we just have to be more overt about it. And also, Mike, you have to have people

on board that work for you that understand how to cut through the noise. We now have them. They just started. So there's no question. I will never run from that question. But moving forward, you're going to see the PFL everywhere. We're going to promote it everywhere. And then we're going to start to keep our own fighters. And we're not going to see a Kayla Harrison leave. And And in Kayla's defense, she was with us for a few years. But we didn't have enough fighters to be able to fight against her to keep her long term. That's another thing we have to do. We have to grow our own talent.

So with a Dakota Dichiva, we continue to have opponents for her to fight. And that's something that fighter ops is doing. And then on the promotional side, which is where I work, and we've got a lot of good people that people don't know, they don't need to know them. But that's the long-term plan, Mike. but the one thing you can't do is try to open door number five before you figure it out room number one. And that's the one thing we're doing right now. And I just would hope that the fans would have a little bit of patience because we're doing a lot of the right things.

It just takes a little while to get things going. And kind of more on that, you know, take your time and get things going. Blood and Beer asks, is there any play to merge all of the PFL regions into one organization with one PFL championship and have the champions defend more frequently so the fans, can identify the stars and soon to be stars. So yeah, you've touched on this a little bit, but you got to build these regions out, but eventually is the long-term plan, let's just migrate everything into one, but it's just going to take time to build that. And that's the whole thing. So we're, we want to treat MMA like it's a worldwide sport.

You can no longer say, well, it's all in the United States or it's only over here. So we're launching eight, the plan is eight different regions. We already have Mina. We already have Europe, Africa opens this month, then you're going to have Australia. You already have the United States. So the plan is, because there are great fighters everywhere, it's just really hard to find them. So by positioning the eight different PFL champions series, then you can have, if you have a rising star, you can do a couple of things. If they're super young, you could bring them over to participate in the world tournament. You could do that. Or if you have a rising star, you can have them start to sell out arenas in Europe like a Paul Hughes.

And then in all the different PFL, you create the stars within. They sell those tickets within. We've also started a fan-friendly ticket pricing where you can get into any PFL event for $25. That's the beginning tier. And I think so many times when you work for a company, you listen to the outside noise. And they say, wow, UFC, they made this month at an event. Did they in 2002? And that's what I talk about saying, stop with the outside noise.

We had a great crowd in Chicago. We had a hyped crowd in Chicago. And I think as the reputation gets out of there, it gets out there. And also stop listening to the negativity. So many people read one or two negative things online. They go, well, everybody's talking about that. They're not. And any big organization, I promise you that in year two through year eight,

they did a lot of changing. They did a lot of experimenting. I've told all of our crew that I work with, let's try stuff. And I was taught growing up in the WWE, you try things. And if you have 10 ideas and one of them works, that's the money you run with it.

And the other nine, people are so busy, they never remember it. But if you don't try, guess what? You get the questions like we just got that, oh, PFL, we don't know, you know, all those types of things.

No, we are full speed ahead. And we believe in what we're doing. We are talented. and the group of people I wish I could bring all of them on here because it's an amazing group. Mike, I've said this. Been at ESPN over 10 years. Been at WWE for damn near 15 years. I started when I was 22 years old.

I have never had more fun than I'm having right now working with the PFL. I believe I can be here for the next 30 years and help grow this place. The amount of people and the credibility that are here would blow your mind. this is one that I continuously get asked about. I mean, I'm just curious more to get your opinion on this because you're not the one who makes the fights. But can you ask about who Usra and Amagabatov is fighting next? So interesting scenario, Archie Colgan is technically the next in line because they just won a number one contender fight. But this fight between Usern Ramagabatov and Paul Hughes was epic.

Like if the year ended now and we did a global fight of the year list, that is probably on most people. people's list right now. And there's a lot of people who thought Paul Hughes might have won that fight. So it just seemed like with such a great fight and the buzz that it got after the fact, this is an easy one to run back, but it doesn't seem like we're going in that direction. So to kind of put my own spin on this, why? Um, so we have an issue sometimes with tweeting before we actually make a final decision. That is changing. Uh, I got to ask this question a couple weeks ago. ignore that tweet. That's as simple as I can make it. Sometimes the word patience is something that as we're creating buzz, the easy thing to do is to run that right back. It is. But you could also

have him face somebody else. You can have Paul Hughes chase him for a little bit. I'm talking storylines. And sometimes the fans like, no, this is the way it's got to be. We're trying to create where we're a 12-month-a-year brand and not just, man, we've got to have that because we're teetering on whatever. And to me, obviously, he's the number one guy. Paul Hughes wants another shot in. Paul Hughes just

had a big time knockout. So how fast do you want it? If this was the UFC and it was Connor McGregor against Poillet for the third time, that spread out over years.

But yet we never talk about that. Do it. we talk about this because what they're the only two stars that we have that's that's what i'm talking about building because remember mike you have c from oh two to eight you had some some stars and they had to be grown and they had to have fights you never had john jones was not a star after one fight was he was he a star after five fights gana mcgriger has a big knockout and now he fights every two or three years from oh you know 2018 people have to remember that in price fighting you've got to build up your so that the next time they fight, it's magical. Also, not a lot of people saw that fight because we didn't have the app then.

We didn't have an international television partner for the United States. That's something that people need to remember. So now that we've developed the app, which costs millions of dollars to do, to be able to run live fights on it, to run all of the PFLs around the world, well, now it's almost like we're starting from scratch. So, Mike, I know everybody wants to see this fight right now, but to me the build could last another six months and you could have this fight at the start of next year and I'm not saying that we're not going to get it this year. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is have a little

bit of patience because there could be really good fights for either guy and then. And I also don't subscribe to the, well, if one of them loses, well, great. Whoever beats that one, now you've got an even better story, don't you, Mike? Well, this guy beat Usman or this guy beat Paul Hughes. So now you have, so for me, it doesn't hurt either guy, but you can also now have an opportunity to build storylines with both guys. That's the whole point. I mean, look, when the UFC put Israel out of Sanya in there with Sean Strickland and said, Drickus Duplice, we're like, why? Why? Why did they just go right to DDP? And then Sean Strickland won the belt. DDP beat Sean Strickland. And then they fight. But now Izzy is chasing DDP this time. And it goes

great example. Great example. Yeah. It doesn't always have to be. And this is where I tell people, stop reading the internet as gospel and try to have some patience and enjoy the ride. Because the ride might can be as much fun as the actual fights themselves. So this is, this is one of the confusing things. And when I had Don Davis on and asked him about this, I didn't get a ton of clarity on it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All right. Yeah.

So the Bellator titles will be phased out because I know he was like, well, if he loses the title, then that person becomes the PFL. So we're done with the Bellator belts? We're done with the Bellator belts. That's why we're going to have over the course of the next six months, there's going to be several champion series events. At each event, we will crown a champion in eight different categories. The same divisions we have in the world tournament. They will then become our world champions.

And the winners of the world tournament will be the number one contenders in that weight division. and then we'll move on from there. We will at some point in the next four to eight months have rankings within the PFL. So now instead of just saying, well, this guy should fight this guy or this girl fights this girl, you can say, all right, number three.

And these will be based off of, and this is why we're bringing in certain people that Mike, you don't even know about it yet, but you'll see them over the course of the next three to six months. And then they'll have really smart backgrounds, credibility. And then we'll have, say, number three,

against number six or number four against number seven. But to create rankings like that, you've got to have more fights and just more data. And that's where the patience comes in. We're building an organization worldwide that needs to have incredible data to make all this stuff happen. And I think the community appreciates that.

And I saw some comments saying, look, you don't need to run things back right away as well. I'm kind of agreeing with you on that sentiment. Let's see what else we got. So obviously the UFC is diving into Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and they're doing a bunch of different things. To your knowledge, would PFL consider adding a boy tie or kickboxing sort of separation, if you will, or grappling matches such as 1-FC to open up opportunities for more talent? 1,000 percent.

I myself have had in the last two months or month ago meetings with a Muay Thai company. I can't tell you who it is or where they're located. but they are already moderately successful because the one thing that we've talked about is what the UFC did with FightPass was really, really smart. You started to throw in other organizations that are, you know, smaller, and you never know when you're going to find a star out of that. So it's a great way to really do some, I guess, not just recruiting, but scouting. And then you can have more and more because there's a lot of people that love Muay Thai. There's a lot of people who love kickboxing. My boy, Todd Grish,

your best friend in the world. He was, you know, he's literally like a brother to me. He's called Glory forever. And a place like Glory never had a, a United States TV deal until recently. They were on stadium, which we're now on,

and I have two personal shows on stadium. They do a lot of combat sports and things like that. But I think what needs to happen moving forward is a lot of these organizations that are very well run. It's just really, really hard to get a TV deal, a streaming deal, in today's DNAs, like one that makes a lot of sense to make enough money.

So 1,000% we are meeting with these organizations. And I would love as now that we have the app's the game change. It really, really is. The app is going to be one-stop shopping, VOD, fights from outside the United States. And then once we get these meetings done, we can start adding these different companies and fights to the app as well, which I think will be really, really cool. Love that. You got time for two more.

Is that okay? I got time for two more. You bet. All right. Back to our friend Lazy Bed. Any plans for merchandising partnerships with notable brands or figures moving forward to your knowledge? I know as far as partnerships with merchandising.

There is. By the way, I do want to give a shout out because it's been a rough week for us. Jeff Brady, who was the head of all of our merchandising at the company, tragically died a hero last week, saving two. children from drowning in an Arizona River. I literally met with him. When was the Chicago show? A week and a half ago

is devastating for us. But he set up a really nice thing. I think right now we have a take down that says all the merchandising deals. We have, we've got a really good group that we brought in to sell for the fighters because this is the other thing that we want to do. And UFC can do whatever they want.

But a lot of the fighters that I've talked to, one of the biggest things, was we want to be able to, if we are a star, and we don't think, Mike, that we're making enough money, be able to go out and earn it. And if you can get a sponsor to pay you a certain amount of money, we want them to have the ability to be creative and earn it. And we never want to stand in the way of that. So those are the type of things that we're working through right now. And as we get bigger, then the companies will get bigger.

And I think that we've had a lot of celebrity investment over the years. but I think now we're realizing that if we invest in these young stars and we can match them up with really good companies, really cool young, hip companies, I think it'll be a win-win for everybody. So certainly that's on the table for sure. Thank you. And let's see. What else? There's one more.

Can't find it, but I know you have a hard out. So I'm just going to ask you straight up. What's going on with there with Big Friend? What's going on, Francis and Gano? Because you know he's part of the organization. We don't know what the hell is going on. If I talk to his coaches, it's like he might box, he might do MMA. No one knows anything.

So maybe you know something. I'm not really sure, but what's going on with Francis? I can tell you this. And this is what people need to understand that when you do these different types of deals, Francis is very, very expensive. So for him to fight, it has to make sense. And he's got to have an opponent that it makes sense. and you can make the amount of money.

Part of what we brought him in for, certainly is his fighting talent, but I think he has a bigger purpose. And I think for us, one of our bigger purposes, and this sounds, and this is really what drew me to this role in this company,

is there are, and I think it's because I travel so much with the WWE, and I saw so many other countries and the talent that's there, the people that are there, the kindness that is there. And I think that,

Africa is a country that a lot of times get forgotten about. They don't have a ton of money in a lot of locations. So I think Francis, it was very, very, that was one of the hooks with him, was let's bring MMA to his country so we can, A, show it off, find the talent. And for certain fighters, we can get them out of their certain situations. So that's a big, big part of what Francis is doing right now. I know fans want to see him fight, but it has to make sense. And he's got to have an opponent to fight.

and that's where we have to build up and bring in other names that are worthy of stepping in the cage with him. And right now, we got, you know, the heavyweight division in the world tournament this year. Are you going to have a breakout star? I don't know. That's probably the one division that has done the least

as far as breakout stars. So I can't tell you when he's going to fight. I know that he would like to. I know that we would love him to. But the one thing that we're going to stand steadfasted is there's no more throwing out fighters that are severely overpaid, and we're going to back fighters that we can push to the moon, which we can with Francis, but it has to make a lot of sense.

So I don't know when that announcement is going to come, but I know he is very, very adamant that PFL Africa is a success, and so are we. So that's right now his focus, because that's less than two weeks away down there in Cape Town. So that's all I can tell you right now. I'm not even skating around it. That's as honest as I can be.

So we're not going to see, to make a comparison, no Undertaker versus Barry Harowitz is happening in the BFL Smart case. That's a great amount. No, that will never happen. It will never. We're not going to do that with anybody. They're not going to do it with anybody. It's a new day, a new way of booking.

And I hope the fans like it. And I hope instead of just fans blindly going to your phone and go, oh, let me just insult them. Stop for a second. Think for a second. And I think you'll have a really good positive answer to what would have been a negative tweet and then support. I love supporting brands that are positive, that are actively trying to be better because, Mike, we only go around at this one time. And one thing we've

learned here in the PFL, as I just mentioned, you never know when that time is going to come and you're not going to have any more days to do this. So for my role in this company right now, I love doing shit like this with you because we can grow this and we can all help each other. It's already hard enough in this MMA space, isn't it? It's hard enough. So why would we tear each other down? So we're not going to do that. And hopefully in the next three to five years, you and I can do many town halls. And in five years, we can say, man, remember in 2025 when we talked in July where we were and where we were now?

That's how I look at all of this. So days like today, they matter to me. So this is really, really important. So thank you. Yeah, of course. And thank you for doing this. I know you get a bit of a time crunch. And hopefully we could do this again, like you said, over the next several years.

We had Don on a couple of times, and it's great to get your perspective. It's just great actually talking to you, especially after watching you on TV for several of the years, but I really appreciate it. Any final thoughts before we send you on your way? Well, I can tell you this. Anytime you want to do this, I'm only a phone call away. That is changing as well. We want to be transparent.

We want to be right in front of you. I think you've seen. We'll answer any questions. I think you can tell the audience. I didn't tell you that anything was off limits today because those days are over. If we don't have an answer, I'm going to tell you that. But understand that we want to build this into arguably the biggest MMA company in the world so that fighters from around the world can entertain around the world.

And fans right here in the United States can also enjoy the best fighting and the most aggressive fighting in the world. That's our job. That's our duty. We take it seriously. We appreciate the support from people like yourselves because you don't have to do this. And we understand that. but I'm so glad that you do.

And so anytime you want me on, I'm only a phone call away. We appreciate that. The great Jonathan coachman, everybody, I am Mike Eck. That is it for this episode of Town Hall. Make sure you check out PFL Africa July 19th. It's going to be a big event.

It's going to be a big day for the sport of mixed martial arts. So get some sleep on Friday, July 18th, wake up nice and early, get ready for PFL Africa. And then it's just a whole day of mixed martial arts action. So thank you all very much. We'll see you next time. We're out of here. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.