The UFC is far and away the biggest fight promotion in MMA, and is currently showing no signs of slowing down. If the UFC ever closed up shop, however, commentator Joe Rogan believes there is one promotion that would probably fill the void.
"If the UFC went away, the PFL (Professional Fighters League) would probably take up the slack," Rogan told his guest Quinton Jackson on a recent edition of the JRE MMA Show.
The PFL launched in 2018. The league uses a seasonal format like other major sports leagues, and after the year-end playoffs, offers the champion of each division a $1 million check to go along with their title belt.
In more recent years, the league as expanded into Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, and made headlines by signing big stars like Jake Paul and Francis Ngannou — though neither man has competed in the organization yet.
While Rogan believes the PFL would be well positioned to dominate the MMA industry if the UFC decided "you know what, we’ve found Jesus, no more fights," he doesn't think the average fight fan pays much attention to the league at the moment.
However, he admitted that Ngannou's PFL debut — whenever it ends up happening — may be enough to get casual fans to follow the league more closely.
"PFL signed Francis," he said. "That’s probably the only way that PFL is going to get people to pay attention."
As long as the UFC is around, Rogan believes the PFL will continue to play second fiddle in the MMA industry.
He credits long-time UFC president and now CEO Dana White for the promotion's massive growth.
"Without him, this wouldn’t be possible," he said of White. "You see what happens with these other organizations with regular dudes running it. They all fold up, they fall apart."
Earlier on the podcast, Rogan reminisced about the dominance of PRIDE, a long defunct promotion that used to operate in Japan. PRIDE routinely sold out massive stadiums in the country, which suggests there is potential for other promotions to have similar success there, but Rogan doesn't see it happening again.
"People don’t know — PRIDE was bigger in Japan than the UFC was in America," he said. "At the time, way before the UFC could ever do this, PRIDE was selling out 90,000-seat stadiums.
"You see events from Japan now, and it’s a shadow of what it was."
