The Venn diagram of top executives and amateur mixed martial artists doesn’t feature much crossover, but Professional Fighters League can count its CEO in that middle overlapping area.
“I wasn’t that great as a fighter,” John Martin, who took the helm of the MMA promotion last July, conceded Wednesday to The Post with a chuckle after rattling off his past martial arts training in the disciplines of karate, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai and judo, “but I loved it. And I did all this while I was working and had a career.”
That career is now focused on overseeing PFL’s transition to a new era that is well underway, having wrapped their first event of the calendar year on Feb. 7 in Dubai.
The organization, once known for a more gimmicky season format and had pivoted to yearlong tournaments last year, is focused primarily on operating as a more traditional MMA promotion.
Under Martin’s watch, the PFL is set to run 16 events in major cities across the globe: Madrid is next on March 20, followed by Pittsburgh eight days later and then Chicago on April 11; Martin would not confirm a Boston event that has been listed for later in April by several notable MMA websites.
A tournament structure will remain in place for eight other events, focused on a pair of regions: Africa and MENA.
The Dubai event, though, is an example of the meat and potatoes of the new PFL.
“I think we got out of the gates really strong in Dubai, and that was a showcase of the type of events that fans can expect from the PFL going forward,” Martin said.
Martin highlighted the pair of championship fights — a new focus on title belts that are perpetually defended rather than seasonal crowns — in the lightweight and welterweight divisions.
Usman Nurmagomedov, cousin to UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov and himself an unbeaten and established champion, defended his 155-pound crown with relative ease against 2025 lightweight tournament winner Alfie Davis, while fellow Dagestan, Russia native Ramazan Kuramagomedov captured the vacant title at 170 — then shockingly retired at age 29 in a move Martin admitted surprised everyone, himself included.
But it’s Nurmagomedov, of the two, who moves the needle as PFL’s top pound-for-pound male fighter in the organization’s own rankings — another new addition to go with the rebirth of the brand.
Martin downplayed the idea of Nurmagomedov as the face of PFL — or any single fighter, for that matter — but let it be known that the man with the highly respected surname is the type of fighter he would prefer to keep in the fold once his contract is up.
“I think it’s really important that we attract and retain our quality fighters,” Martin said. “[Nurmagmedov] has one more fight to go [on his contract], and then I look forward to sitting down with him again and talking about what his future is and how we can continue to be the best place for him.
“I expect that we can be competitive with any promotion in the world to keep the people that are most important to us.”
PFL will need elite talent such as Nurmagomedov in the fold as it endeavors forward under this new regime headed by Martin, particularly with the upcoming expiration of its TV deal with ESPN.
Until this year, The Worldwide Leader was the broadcast partner of both global juggernaut UFC as well as PFL, which ranks as the No. 2 MMA organization operating out of the United States and staging fights globally.
Once UFC jumped ship for Paramount+, that left PFL as ESPN’s lone MMA programming, a relationship that could continue.
“We’ll be sitting down with them and talking with them about what their needs are,” Martin explains. “They used to have the UFC; now, they don’t. I would expect and hope that they want to remain in the combat sports category. And if so, I think we’re the best partner to work with.
“And I think, from my perspective, having a really strong partner in the U.S., or potentially globally, is critically important as we think about making our company continue to grow at a rapid pace.”
Key to that goal, Martin says, is to have “a partner who’s going to promote us.”
Martin highlighted the importance of “consistent scheduling where fans can know how to see us” as vital, noting that those in his own circle had difficulty figuring out the best way to tune in to PFL’s 2026 opener earlier this month.
“We were on ESPN Unlimited, and I can’t tell you the number of times, anecdotally, friends, colleagues, people were texting me like, ‘Hey, I don’t know where to find you. I know that this event is going on. Where are you?’ ” Martin recalls.
“So, we have to do a better job of promoting ourselves. We have to do a much better job of saying we have an event, and everywhere where we say we have an event, it’s like ‘on ESPN,’ if you’re in the U.S. But then, we want a partner who’s also going to be somewhat vested with us and say, ‘No, no, we’re going to help grow you and promote you.’ ”
Sounds like Martin is still a fighter, battling on behalf of PFL.
