The Tuesday morning of their 2024 Championships’ fight week saw the Professional Fighter’s League, the only real rival to the UFC in the West, announced that elbows will be legal in the championship fights this week, and in the foreseeable future.
PFL was founded in 2019 and has never allowed one crucial tool for mixed martial artists, elbows, reasoning that elbows cause cuts which will keep fighters out of their season bouts.
In the PFL season, fighters fight two regular season bouts in a span of about two months, then fight twice in three months if they make it to the playoffs and the finals. A bad cut in a fight could make it hard for an athlete to be ready for the next one.
The promotion’s reasoning makes sense, but what frustrated fans is how they refused to allow elbows even in the season finale, and in non-season bouts.
Now, that has changed, as the ten championship fights (from the main PFL season and the PFL MENA tournament) from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Friday will all utilize legal elbows.
The non-title bouts will still not allow elbows however, an odd decision given that the prelim fighters of the fight card do not have another fight to prepare for after this one.
This will be the final card of the 2024 PFL season. It remains to be seen if they will continue with the regular season/playoff format in 2025, as fans have been critical of it, particularly since Bellator and its fighter contracts were purchased by the rival promotion.
