LAS VEGAS – Kenny Florian doesn’t like the situation that presented itself in the playoffs for PFL’s 2023 lightweight season, but ultimately, he does think it was handled the best way possible.
Last month, Natan Schulte beat his friend and teammate Raush Manfio at 2023 PFL 6 in a lackluster decision to advance to the lightweight playoffs going down on Aug. 23. However, shortly after, the PFL removed Schulte from the playoffs despite qualifying based on the point system and replaced him with former UFC fighter Shane Burgos, who didn’t earn enough points to advance.
The promotion justified the move by citing that Schulte and Manfio did not perform to their contractually-obligated level of effort. This caused plenty of controversy in the MMA community.
Florian, who’s a commentator for the PFL, understands the nature of the situation, but disagrees with the criticism that’s been thrown the promotion’s way.
“It’s tough because I can certainly side with the fighters, and by the fighters I mean Natan Schulte and Raush Manfio, in that they were put in a difficult spot,” Florian told MMA Junkie Radio at the UFC X event. “These guys are literally best friends, they’re godfather’s to each other’s kids, so I can definitely sympathize with their situation, but it’s very explicit and very clear in the contract that you actually have to fight 100 percent.
“To me, while watching the fight, I tried to be as honest as possible, but when I was watching the fight I was like, ‘This is basically a sparring session.’ It might’ve even been less than a sparring session. They weren’t throwing full out. Now, some people are saying, ‘Well, this isn’t a fighter’s first thing. The PFL put these guys in this situation, and you can’t just put Shane Burgos in that situation and put him to advance to playoffs.’ What I would argue and say is, they actually are because for someone who did fight their butt off, and they tried to make it to the other side of the bracket and see two other guys that didn’t really take any punches, didn’t really take any kicks, it was basically a grappling match, you could argue, ‘Hey, I have to fight my way and risk my health to make it to the other side and make it to the playoffs.’ These guys really didn’t.”
Although Florian understands why people would be mad, he does think PFL handled it the best they could. The other alternatives could’ve set an ugly precedent, according to Florian.
“I see both sides, but in the end PFL did the right thing because as an organization, and I’m not really big on, ‘Put these fighters down. They have to learn their lesson,’ but at the same time, how do you as an organization have something like that happen and not penalize the fighter?” Florian said. “If you do that, you open up a big Pandora’s box and people go, ‘Well, they did it. Why can’t we do it?’ I think moving on to the future, it would be in the interest of all organizations to go, ‘Hey, listen. We’re not going to have two guys that are best friends, that fight in the same team, that have that kind of relationship fight each other because you risk this thing actually happening, especially when you’re talking about two guys who are trying to make it to the playoffs.’
“So that’s my take on it. It’s unfortunate all the way around. I feel bad for all parties. If Shane Burgos was outpointed by someone else, that person would’ve been put in that situation. They would’ve advanced instead of Shane Burgos in my opinion. So I don’t think it was about Shane Burgos and them trying to put him into the playoffs. I don’t think it was a foul play on the PFL.”
