The October 19 Professional Fighters League PPV card billed as PFL SuperFights: Battle of the Giants is the most critical event in the promotion’s history.
The Professional Fighters League unveiled the belt that will be awarded to the winners of the main and co-main event fights in the video below.
In the co-main event, reigning PFL seasons champion Larissa Pacheco will face Bellator featherweight champion Cris Cyborg. In the main event, former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou will make his promotional debut against reigning PFL heavyweight champion Renan Ferreira.
The fight is by far the biggest in PFL history, and I spoke to one company executive who called it the battle for the “Lineal Heavyweight title.”
“This weekend, the undisputed lineal heavyweight champion of the world is returning to the sport where he reigned supreme,” Loren Mack, Senior VP, said to me during a phone call on October 14. “Francis Ngannou is undoubtedly the best heavyweight on the planet and he is the lineal heavyweight champion; he never lost his title. He now has a chance to defend it in a battle for the lineal heavyweight title against a man who has done everything possible to earn this shot against him. This Saturday, Francis Ngannou vs. Renan Ferreira is truly a Battle of the Giants.”
While Ngannou is not the current UFC champion, he vacated the title when he left the organization and signed with the PFL in early 2023. Since leaving, he has had two high-paying boxing matches against Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, losing both.
The fight with Ferreira will mark the first time Ngannou will wear the PFL gloves in competition. In Ngannou’s last MMA fight, he easily defeated Ciryl Gane via unanimous decision in January 2022.
He’s won six straight at heavyweight with wins over Stipe Miocic, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, Junior dos Santos, Cain Velasquez, and Curtis Blaydes.
The only prominent heavyweights in the UFC’s ranks that Ngannou hasn’t faced are the current champions, Jon Jones, and interim titleholders Tom Aspinall and Alexander Volkov. While Ngannou’s MMA resume is unquestionable, Ferreira has paid every reasonable cost under the PFL and Bellator’s banner to get an opportunity to stake his claim to the SuperFights title.
The towering 6-foot-7-inch Brazilian won the PFL’s 2023 heavyweight season by destroying Denis Goltsov. Ferreira followed that up with a destructive finish to Bellator heavyweight champion Ryan Bader to prove his superiority over the other brand under the PFL’s umbrella.
If Ngannou were to defeat Ferreira, there is an argument to be made that he could lay claim to being the No. 1 heavyweight in the world. That distinction is essential for the PFL as it continues to grow as an organization alongside the UFC.
I spoke with PFL President Donn Davis earlier this month, and he made it clear he believes the two organizations have a global duopoly in MMA and equal star power. He explains his rationale in the video below.
Part of legitimizing that concept is having enough fighters who rank in the Top 10 across every weight class, regardless of promotion.
The co-main event shouldn’t be dismissed. That fight has some UFC connections as well. Pacheco is the only woman to defeat current UFC women’s bantamweight title contender Kayla Harrison in 2022. Harrison had defeated Pacheco in two previous meetings, but the latter won her first annual PFL title with a massive upset in 2022.
At one point, the dream fight when the PFL bought Bellator was Harrison vs. Cyborg. Harrison’s decision to go to the UFC killed that concept, and the PFL pivoted to Pacheco vs. Cyborg, a more natural champion-vs-champion battle for the SuperFights title.
Pacheco repeated as the 2023 champion, while Harrison took the year off, which placed her in a position to fight Cyborg in Riyadh.
Stay tuned for more coverage throughout the fight week leading up to the PFL’s historic event on Saturday, October 19, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.