MMA fans are up-in-arms about today’s PFL card.
The Professional Fighters League are putting on their biggest event of the year with a championship double-header in Dubai.
Former Bellator Champion Usman Nurmagomedov and Ireland’s Paul Hughes run back their epic title fight from earlier this year in the highly-anticipated lightweight main event.
The main card features a light heavyweight title rematch between former Bellator champion Corey Anderson and Dovlet Yagshimuradov as well as a bantamweight bout between former Bellator champion Sergio Pettis and Magomed Magomedov.
PFL Champions Series 2 is one of the strongest cards in the promotion’s history, however, many fans are refusing to watch after learning the non pay-per-view event isn’t included in their ESPN+ subscription.
- EXCLUSIVE: Usman Nurmagomedov vs Paul Hughes is PFL’s perfect rematch – but it wasn’t easy to make a deal
Fans complain over PFL event not being streamed on ESPN+
ESPN+ has been the streaming home of UFC and PFL for the last several years.
It seems the MMA world was under the impression that Friday’s PFL event would be available to stream on ESPN+, but that’s simply not the case.
On fight day, PFL wrote that the event was streaming on the ESPN App. However, it’s only available to watch with an ESPN Unlimited subscription, which is priced at $29.99 a month or $359.88 for an annual subscription.
ESPN Select (formerly ESPN+) is currently $11.99 a month. Fans on this plan weren’t too happy as they can’t watch PFL unless they agree to pay for a new package that costs more than double what they’re currently paying.
“Why are they putting PFL on this ESPN Unlimited thing,” one fan questioned on X.
“You would think they’d wanna give MMA fans a reason to at least keep ESPN+ (soon to be ESPN Select) in a few months. This is sabotage haha,” the fan added.
“Absolutely maddening,” a fan said about not being able to watch the PFL event.
“Just figured that out, just ridiculous can’t wait to cancel ESPN+ once the UFC leaves,” another fan wrote.
“Best fight of the year and you ruin it behind a 30$ pay wall. Gladly watching elsewhere!” another fan weighed in on Instagram.
“Done with PFL… Now I need ESPN unlimited to stream? Ya got me f—– up!” a fan added.
Paul Hughes could set up trilogy against Usman Nurmagomedov
Paul Hughes has the chance to settle his score with Usman Nurmagomedov.
Hughes gave Nurmagomedov his toughest fight to date back in January, taking Khabib’s cousin to the distance after a five-round war.
Hughes ultimately lost a controversial majority decision to Nurmagomedov, rebounding from the loss with a 42-second KO of Bruno Miranda in his next fight in May.
Should Hughes tie up his series with Nurmagomedov this weekend, we could see the lightweights fight for a third time as they are currently the biggest draws in the PFL outside of Francis Ngannou.