MMA News - PFL closes shop for entire 2020 season

The UFC may or may not be the 1st pro sports league to return to action but one MMA organization is definitely closing shop. The Professional Fighters League will not launch their 3rd season in 2020.

The league, which came out of the World Series Of Fighting, had some decent success in their first two seasons. However, the lone organization that runs a "seasonal" format has seen the sands in their hour glass run out. It was to have begun May 21 and was to have finished as the previous two seasons did on New Years Eve day in New York City.

Originally, the plan was to have a partial season once given the clearance to come back from the coronavirus pandemic hiatus. While many fans have latched onto their innovations to the sport, including a speed and timer chip in gloves, as well as the format itself; some have not. But lets all remember before the original run of the XFL there was no low angle overhead cameras at football games. That's something the big and mighty NFL jumped all over, innovating the sport. That also became an innovation in the football video games as well. So you never know where the next big idea will come from.

CEO Peter Murray announced the bad news in the following statement:

"In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Professional Fighters League has rescheduled our upcoming 2020 season for Spring 2021. PFL is a global MMA league with athletes from over 25 countries, and our decision is guided by the health and safety of our fighters, fans, partners, and event personnel.

The PFL mission is to evolve and grow the sport of MMA, and we look forward to staging our unique sport-season format with regular season, playoffs, and championship events on ESPN platforms next year. PFL has always been focused on delivering the best made-for-tv MMA product and we will continue to deliver the most innovative fight experience going forward. Fans can also look forward to PFL elevating our roster with new championship caliber fighter signings such as Rory MacDonald.

For the remainder of 2020, the PFL will support our fighters with a monthly cash stipend to help provide some relief during these challenging times. In addition, for sports fans who we know are looking for compelling content, the PFL will deliver new original programming across ESPN and PFL platforms.

PFL will continue to be an innovator in the world of sports. Our thoughts are with all those impacted by COVID-19".

They were coming off a major off season where they spent some serious money on bringing in new talent. So it will be interesting to see if a year from now they add even more to it, with a lot less money in the till. Also interesting to see is do any of the fighters have an out in their contract to get into another organization for a fight or two before 2021. Or would they even be allowed to take such a fight. It's something you can bet that manager Ali Abdel-Aziz who reps most fighters will be working on.

That original idea of a half season; say, June/July to December would have just been too short. So for this organization it was that discretion is truly the better part of valor. Of course that's not to say they don't have 6 loaded divisions that are now upset.

Anyone who follows the sport knows with the talent level they had, and added it was going to be a season of fireworks. The 12 fighters that fought for the Championships last season will not have seen competitive action in 16 months come next season. Those that didn't even make the playoffs for the most part are looking at a 17-19 month layoff. Talk about possible cage rust.