DUBAI: On Feb. 7 in Dubai, England’s Alfie “The Axe Man” Davis will be challenging reigning champion Usman Nurmagomedov for the PFL Lightweight World Championship in the main event of PFL: Road to Dubai at the Coca-Cola Arena.
A standout in Bellator and the PFL last season, Davies earned his spot opposite Nurmagomedov by becoming the 2025 PFL World Tournament’s lightweight champion.
As he looks to add “world champion” to his list of accomplishments, he will also have the distinction of being the last PFL Lightweight Tournament Champion, at least for now, as the league is looking to usher in a new era, which includes moving away from the tournament format that they have become known for since their inception in 2017.
For years, the tournament format was the PFL’s selling point, as it helped them stand out from the UFC and helped them to become more relatable to traditional sports fans.
And while it has brought them success over the past few years, the league’s new powers-that-be decided that it was time for a change.
Davis, who tore through the tournament last year with wins over big names such as Clay Collard, Brent Primus and Gadzhi Rabadanov, shared his sentiments on the league moving away from the tournament format.
“I’m mixed on my views, to be honest with you, because I competed in the tournament, and I really enjoyed the tournament structure from an athlete perspective, in terms of you get to fight in quick succession,” Davis explained. “Obviously, you get the paycheck for each fight, and there’s a large surprise money. Also, I feel like there is a good story behind it in terms of you know exactly who you’re fighting next after, beating the next person, I think just that that structure of a tournament is quite exciting to follow.”
As Davis also said, there were some cons to the tournament format.
“In saying that, it’s very hard on the athlete to do back-to-back fights so quickly. And also, I think from a business perspective, it’s quite hard to market the fights like that, in terms of, like, the marketing, sort of, budget and stuff.”
Now that he is challenging for a world championship, Davis is getting the main event treatment, and is seeing how the traditional format of promoting fights works better towards building up lesser-known fighters.
“I think a more traditional approach allows you to, like, really build big fights,” Davis said. “So, like, I think PFL are doing really well in how they’re marketing this fight, because we’re getting a lot of exposure.
“And I think that we can really start telling a lot more stories, because I think, ultimately, I think that’s what is gonna get the PFL brand better is starting to tell the story of the fighters, because I think we’ve had the talent for a while.
“I mean, for athlete for athlete, I think we can compete with the very best. I think we’ve got guys that are better than some of the UFC guys, we’ve got some of the guys that are the best in the world. I think what the PFL has maybe lacked before is telling the story of these fighters. I think that’s the way that all sports ... people are invested ... not just in the sport.”
As for his fight against Nurmagomedov, Davis believes that, even without the title on the line, this is the biggest fight of his career, but he did have a bit more to say about his opponent.
“I would say yes. The only kick I will have is that, when I fought Gadzhi Rabadanov, a lot of people were ranking him higher than Usman at the time, because he was on such a tear and beating some great guys,” Davis said. “And also, Gadzhi, in my opinion, was a bit scarier than Usman, because Gadzhi was on a firefight knockout streak. He was knocking out people left, right and center, beating some very good names, knocking them out. So he was a very scary fighter to fight.”
To be fair, Rabadanov was a former tournament champion in his own right, and was on an 11-fight winning streak before running into Davis.
“Usman is very skilled and talented, and has got the Nurmagomedov name, but I would actually say that Gadzhi, for me, was almost equal, if not somewhat ... he was definitely scarier than Usman,” Davis said.
“But Usman’s definitely got the name, he’s got the followers, he’s got an unbeaten record, which people like, so he is, arguably, yeah, the biggest fight in my career.”
