Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Check out which epic battle earned MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Year award for 2023.
With another action-packed year of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie takes a look at the best fights from January to December 2023.
As voted on by our entire staff, here are the top five and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Year.
Relive the PFL’s best fights of the year with this video ranking the top 5.
In 2023, MMA delivered some top-notch fights, and several of those went down under the PFL banner.
From a wild, standup battle between [autotag]Clay Collard[/autotag] and [autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag], to [autotag]Jesus Pinedo[/autotag]’s close loss to [autotag]Gabriel Braga[/autotag], which kicked off his incredible championship run, PFL was home of some barn burners. Now with the season over, the promotion ranked its best knockouts as the following:
1. Clay Collard def. Shane Burgos via unanimous decision
2. [autotag]Zach Juusola[/autotag] def. [autotag]Brandon Jenkins[/autotag] via unanimous decision
3. Magomed Umalatov def. Nayib Lopez via unanimous decision
4. Gabriel Braga def. Jesus Pinedo via split decision
5. [autotag]Larissa Pacheco[/autotag] def. [autotag]Marina Mokhnatkina[/autotag] via unanimous decision
You can watch the replay of the highlights of the top 5 PFL fights in the video above.
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With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from August 2023.
With another action-packed month of MMA in the books, MMA Junkie looks at the best fights from August 2023: Here are the five nominees, listed in chronological order, and winner of MMA Junkie’s Fight of the Month award for August.
At the bottom of the post, let us know if we got it right by voting on your choice.
Watch the highlights of Clay Collard’s insane war against Shane Burgos in the main event of 2023 PFL Playoffs 3.
[autotag]Clay Collard[/autotag] and [autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag] delivered this week, easily, one of the best fights of the year.
The two lightweights went toe-to-toe for 15 minutes in a semifinal bout that headlined Wednesday’s 2023 PFL Playoffs 3. In the end, Collard (25-10) defeated Burgos (16-6) by unanimous decision, which read 29-28 across all three judges’ scorecards.
It was an epic fight that had both fighters in trouble multiple times, and is arguably now the best fight in PFL history.
You can watch the replay of the highlights in the video above.
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Collard entered the lightweight playoffs as the No. 1 seed after picking up a unanimous decision win over Yamato Nishikawa and a second-round stoppage of Stevie Ray in his regular season bouts. With the result, he now advanced to the finals, where he will face Olivier Aubin-Mercier, who recorded a second-round TKO stoppage against Bruno Miranda in the co-main event of the card.
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for 2023 PFL Playoffs 3.
Check out these photos from Clay Collard vs. Shane Burgos, a lightweight semifinal bout at 2023 PFL Playoffs 3 in New York.
Check out these photos from [autotag]Clay Collard[/autotag]’s victory over Shane Burgos in a lightweight semifinal bout at 2023 PFL Playoffs 3 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. (Photos courtesy of Cooper Neill, PFL MMA)
Check out the full results of 2023 PFL Playoffs 3, including which lightweights and welterweights advanced to the 2023 PFL Championships.
2023 PFL Playoffs 3 took place Wednesday and MMA Junkie provided live and official results throughout the entire card.
The event featured welterweight and lightweight playoff bouts at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York. The main card aired live on ESPN at 9 p.m. ET following prelims on ESPN+ beginning at 6:30 p.m. ET.
In the featured contest, [autotag]Clay Collard[/autotag] (25-10) took on [autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag] (16-6) in a Fight of the Year contender lightweight semifinal bout. It was a brutal contest with high-volume striking, but in the end, Collard earned unanimous 29-28 scores from the official judges.
Fists were flying early and often in the first round, living up to the expectation of an exciting matchup. Collard’s volume was higher, mixing up punches to the body and head with sharp combinations. Burgos landed well early and added some nice kicks, but as the round wore on, Collard put a stamp on the round by hurting Burgos with shots to the chin.
Delivering just as advertised… Round 2 up now!!#PFLPlayoffs LIVE NOW
🇺🇸 ESPN
🌎 https://t.co/jPNvomCxHI pic.twitter.com/7jEHWZt23m— PFL (@PFLMMA) August 24, 2023
Collard continued to march forward with accurate punches early in the second, causing blood to flow from Burgos’ face. Keeping his opponent honest, Burgos fired back with damaging inside leg kicks. Collard continued to pepper out jabs, but was knocked off his feet by a hard leg kick from Burgos. The momentum only lasted seconds, as Collard returned to his feet and landed a hard left hook to send Burgos to the mat. Collard followed him to the ground for more strikes, but the finish wouldn’t come as Burgos worked his way back up. The round closed with more striking exchanges on the feet.
Dropped him like a bad habit!#PFLPlayoffs LIVE NOW
🇺🇸 ESPN
🌎 https://t.co/jPNvomCxHI pic.twitter.com/pbTUfHQvIp— PFL (@PFLMMA) August 24, 2023
The striking exchanges continued at a high clip in the final round. Burgos added punches to the body along with kicks, as Collard worked fast punches and showed excellent head movement. A hard inside leg kick prompted Collard to shoot for a takedown, but Burgos stuffed it and shook his fingers at his opponent. They returned to the center to trade more strikes, but the inside kicks from Burgos really bothered Collard. After a clinch against the cage, it was back to fighting in the phone booth in the center of the cage. More inside leg kicks affected Collard’s movement, but he kept firing as they traded blows until the final horn.
AND YOUR WINNER VIA UNANIMOUS DECISION… "Cassius" Clay Collard!!!#PFLPlayoffs LIVE NOW
🇺🇸 ESPN
🌎 https://t.co/jPNvomCxHI pic.twitter.com/9VbU8b6uMy— PFL (@PFLMMA) August 24, 2023
The judges saw the fight unanimously for Collard, earning his first PFL finals appearance.
Collard entered the lightweight playoffs as the No. 1 seed after picking up a unanimous decision win over Yamato Nishikawa and a second-round stoppage of Stevie Ray in his regular season bouts. He now advances to the finals where he will face [autotag]Olivier Aubin-Mercier[/autotag], who recorded a second-round TKO stoppage against Bruno Miranda in the co-main event.
In the welterweight semifinal bouts, [autotag]Sadibou Sy[/autotag] defeated Carlos Leal by split decision, and [autotag]Magomed Magomedkerimov[/autotag] turned away Solomon Renfro to advance to the finals.
Check out the official results, details and highlight clips from each bout below.
Check out which veterans of the UFC are competing in combat sports across the globe this weekend.
This week, the UFC travels to Singapore for UFC Fight Night 225.
The event at Singapore Indoor Stadium features a featherweight clash between former champion [autotag]Max Holloway[/autotag] and “The Korean Zombie” [autotag]Chan Sung Jung[/autotag].
Elsewhere, many other combat sports events are taking place that feature a number of familiar names that have competed under the UFC banner.
Check out which veterans of the global MMA leader are competing in MMA and bareknuckle boxing this week from Aug. 23-27.
Check out the names and details about their bouts below.
Upcoming event information from Tapology.
Kenny Florian believes that PFL ultimately did the right thing in removing Natan Schulte from the 2023 playoffs.
LAS VEGAS – [autotag]Kenny Florian[/autotag] doesn’t like the situation that presented itself in the playoffs for PFL’s 2023 lightweight season, but ultimately, he does think it was handled the best way possible.
Last month, [autotag]Natan Schulte[/autotag] beat his friend and teammate [autotag]Raush Manfio[/autotag] at 2023 PFL 6 in a lackluster decision to advance to the lightweight playoffs going down on Aug. 23. However, shortly after, the PFL removed Schulte from the playoffs despite qualifying based on the point system and replaced him with former UFC fighter [autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag], who didn’t earn enough points to advance.
The promotion justified the move by citing that Schulte and Manfio did not perform to their contractually-obligated level of effort. This caused plenty of controversy in the MMA community.
Florian, who’s a commentator for the PFL, understands the nature of the situation, but disagrees with the criticism that’s been thrown the promotion’s way.
“It’s tough because I can certainly side with the fighters, and by the fighters I mean Natan Schulte and Raush Manfio, in that they were put in a difficult spot,” Florian told MMA Junkie Radio at the UFC X event. “These guys are literally best friends, they’re godfather’s to each other’s kids, so I can definitely sympathize with their situation, but it’s very explicit and very clear in the contract that you actually have to fight 100 percent.
“To me, while watching the fight, I tried to be as honest as possible, but when I was watching the fight I was like, ‘This is basically a sparring session.’ It might’ve even been less than a sparring session. They weren’t throwing full out. Now, some people are saying, ‘Well, this isn’t a fighter’s first thing. The PFL put these guys in this situation, and you can’t just put Shane Burgos in that situation and put him to advance to playoffs.’ What I would argue and say is, they actually are because for someone who did fight their butt off, and they tried to make it to the other side of the bracket and see two other guys that didn’t really take any punches, didn’t really take any kicks, it was basically a grappling match, you could argue, ‘Hey, I have to fight my way and risk my health to make it to the other side and make it to the playoffs.’ These guys really didn’t.”
Although Florian understands why people would be mad, he does think PFL handled it the best they could. The other alternatives could’ve set an ugly precedent, according to Florian.
“I see both sides, but in the end PFL did the right thing because as an organization, and I’m not really big on, ‘Put these fighters down. They have to learn their lesson,’ but at the same time, how do you as an organization have something like that happen and not penalize the fighter?” Florian said. “If you do that, you open up a big Pandora’s box and people go, ‘Well, they did it. Why can’t we do it?’ I think moving on to the future, it would be in the interest of all organizations to go, ‘Hey, listen. We’re not going to have two guys that are best friends, that fight in the same team, that have that kind of relationship fight each other because you risk this thing actually happening, especially when you’re talking about two guys who are trying to make it to the playoffs.’
“So that’s my take on it. It’s unfortunate all the way around. I feel bad for all parties. If Shane Burgos was outpointed by someone else, that person would’ve been put in that situation. They would’ve advanced instead of Shane Burgos in my opinion. So I don’t think it was about Shane Burgos and them trying to put him into the playoffs. I don’t think it was a foul play on the PFL.”
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Shane Burgos sympathizes with Natan Schulte after taking his 2023 PFL playoff semifinals spot.
[autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag] sympathizes with [autotag]Natan Schulte[/autotag] after taking his 2023 PFL playoff spot.
Although Schulte qualified for the lightweight playoffs based on his results, the PFL announced it removed the 2019 PFL champion from the playoffs after promotion officials deemed Schulte and his opponent, Raush Manfio, who’s a close friend and teammate, didn’t put their “best efforts” in the fight as they were contracted to do.
As a result, former UFC fighter Burgos was given a semifinal spot in the playoffs after he thought he had been eliminated. Burgos is happy for the opportunity, but feels weird for taking Schulte’s spot.
“I sympathize with those guys,” Burgos told Fight Bananas. “I’m not a heartless motherf*cker. I get it, man. They’re best friends – like godfather of the other one’s daughter. That’s a sh*t position to be in. I do feel for them in that position. Watching it backstage, you could tell they didn’t want to hurt each other. I sympathize with them because I’ve never been in that position to fight a teammate, let alone a best friend. So I do feel for them.”
Burgos is one of PFL’s biggest signings. When asked to respond to critics claiming it was a ploy by the promotion to get him in the playoffs, Burgos said he sees where people are coming from with the theory.
“I can see what you guys are saying,” Burgos said. “Listen, if you ask me, ‘Do I deserve to be in this position?’ Yes, I do think I deserve to be in this position. But do I think I deserve to be in this position more so than Natan? No, I don’t. The dude, no matter what, he has two wins going to the playoffs. I think he does deserve it moreso than I am.
“At the end of the day, it says win on his record over Manfio and it says win on his record over Stevie Ray. he has two and I’m 1-1, so yeah, he deserves it more than I do. I still think I deserve it overall, but not more than him. If you’ve got to pick four guys, the four guys that have two wins each, those guys deserve it ahead of me. I’m the fifth guy, the next guy in line after that.”
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For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for PFL 2023, Week 6.
Check out the disclosed 2023 PFL 6 fighter pays, including what Shane Burgos is making after jumping over from the UFC.
PFL returned to Atlanta this past Thursday for the third of three shows in three consecutive weeks at Overtime Elite Arena.
2023 PFL 6 featured final regular season bouts at lightweight and welterweight, as well as three showcase fights. In the main event, 2022 PFL lightweight champion [autotag]Olivier Aubin-Mercier[/autotag] knocked out Dana White’s Contender Series alum [autotag]Anthony Romero[/autotag].
Other names on the card included former UFC fighters [autotag]Shane Burgos[/autotag] and [autotag]Clay Collard[/autotag], as well as past PFL championship winners [autotag]Raush Manfio[/autotag], [autotag]Natan Schulte[/autotag], [autotag]Sadibou Sy[/autotag] and [autotag]Magomed Magomedkerimov[/autotag].
MMA Junkie acquired a list of the 24 fighters’ disclosed payouts Monday from the Georgia Athletic and Entertainment Commission. The amounts do not include bonuses, sponsorships or any other discretionary payments.
Five fighters topped the list at $100,000, while all other fighters received five-figure or four-figure payouts. Among them was Burgos, who left the UFC as a free agent to sign with the PFL. Friday, Burgos pocketed a six-figure flat purse against [autotag]Yamato Nishikawa[/autotag].
Scroll below to see the disclosed pay for each 2023 PFL 6 fighter.
