After much speculation, the Professional Fighters League (PFL) has confirmed that it is officially moving away from its season-based format, starting immediately, with a five-month single-elimination tournament set to take its place.
The PFL World Tournament format will feature eight different weight classes, each featuring eight contenders, as they battle it out through tournament brackets, March Madness style, until each division’s PFL Tournament Champion is crowned.
Each round of the tournament will be aired on ESPN and ESPN+ in the US, and via PFL’s premium media partners globally. In the UK, that means DAZN.
The tournament will feature the heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, welterweight, lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight and women’s flyweight divisions, with first round, semi-finals and finals determine each division’s tournament champion. The first round and semi-final fights will be contested over three, five-minute rounds, while the tournament finals will be foought over five, five-minute rounds. In a change announced earlier this month by PFL co-founder Donn Davis, elbows will be permitted in all bouts.
Fighters will be seeded to determine the opening round matchups, with details of the fighters set to compete in each division’s tournament to be announced in February.
The tournaments will be spread across three PFL events per round, with first-round matchups taking place at PFL shows on April 3, 11 and 18, while the semi-final bouts are scheduled for PFL events on June 12, 20 and 27.

The championship finales will also form part of wider PFL-branded shows, with the PFL Tournament Champions crowned on August 1, 15 and 21.
“The PFL World Tournament is continued innovation by PFL, and we are thrilled to present to global MMA fans an even more exciting product,” said PFL CEO, Peter Murray.
“One shot, single elimination, nothing more exciting in all of sports.”