PFL President Ray Sefo realized he hit the success when he landed Fabricio Werdum.
In the wake of testing free office, Werdum (24-9-1) selected to sign an agreement to join PFL’s heavyweight division for the upcoming 2021 season, where he’ll spend the last chapter of his career.
Considering his name worth and honors in the game, Sefo realized he needed to seize the opportunity to sign the previous UFC heavyweight champion, who PFL CEO Peter Murray named as the “Tom Brady of MMA.”
“Once I knew he was becoming a free agent, obviously I hassled Ali about it and Ali had a few other offers on the table, but I’m just thankful that we were able to work it out and finalize this deal, so it was awesome,” Sefo told MMA Junkie. “I’m super happy about it.”
Werdum has partaken in various competitions before under both the PRIDE and Strikeforce banners, yet has never contended twice on the same night in the MMA competition, which Sefo thinks played a factor in influencing him to sign with PFL, with the promotion’s end-of-season playoffs offering that challenge.
“The one thing that he’s really excited about, and it goes back to the old days, but he was talking about doing the ‘two fights in one night’ thing and so that kinda got him excited and of course a few other things that we were able to offer him from what I understand, it wasn’t possible elsewhere,” Sefo explained. “So that kind of solidified the deal for him and of course the fact that he’s on ESPN and the fact that he gets to stay home as well so I think there are a lot of factors that came into that persuaded him to sign with us.”
Werdum will presently join any semblance of previous Bellator welterweight champion Rory MacDonald, previous UFC lightweight Olivier Aubin-Mercier and champion wrestler Bubba Jenkins as the most up to date increments to the PFL program.
