Report: Bellator brand 'dead' after major PFL changes
The Bellator brand no longer exists, and it'll be known as the "PFL Champions Series" featuring title fights for Professional Fighters League divisional titles, reports Uncrowned's Ariel Helwani, citing sources familiar with the situation.
"Bellator is dead," Helwani said Monday. "Bellator as we know it is no more. Bellator is dead. You will not see Bellator events anymore."
The reported new titles will be separate from PFL's traditional season tournament format, which crowns six divisional champions throughout four fights in one calendar year.
"This is the structure: There are going to be what is being referred to as, 'PFL Champions Series events'," Helwani added. "Those events are going to be headlined by title fights. PFL is going to start having its own champions, not just season champions, not just tournament champions. Its own champion."
How they will crown those champions is unclear, according to Helwani.
"The PFL season format is no more," he added. "What it is now is somewhere in the range of six-to-eight weight classes being featured. Eight fighters, two alternates, single-elimination tournament. There's no more standings. There's no more points or anything like that."
Helwani's report comes shortly after it was announced that PFL - which previously rewarded its division winners with $1 million - will give its season champions a bonus check for $500,000 on top of their contracted earnings leading up to the championship bout, according to MMA Junkie.
It had already been rumored that the end of Bellator was a matter of when, not if, after PFL acquired Bellator in a landmark deal for mixed martial arts in November 2023.
The Jan. 25 PFL event featuring Bellator lightweight champion Usman Nurmagomedov against Paul Hughes is presumably the final Bellator title fight in MMA history, notes Uncrowned's Drake Riggs. The promotion's first event was held in 2009.