PFL reveals rosters, event schedule for 2018 season

The Professional Fighters League is starting over in a big way.

After holding three small shows in 2017, the former World Series of Fighting promotion announced Monday that it will kick off its inaugural PFL season on June 7 at The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in what is scheduled to be the first of 11 events this year culminating in a year-end card on Dec. 31 that will see six fighters walk away with $1,000,000 in prize money.

MMAjunkie was first to report the details for the upcoming season and the fighters participating.

Per MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani, the June 7 premiere will be an 11-fight card comprised of featherweights and heavyweights:

Featherweights

Andre Harrison vs. Jumabieke Tuerxun
Lance Palmer vs. Bekbulat Magomedov
Alexandre Almeida vs. Lee Coville
Magomed Idrisov vs. Steven Siler
Marcos Galvao vs. Nazareno Malegarie
Timur Valiev vs. Max Coga

Heavyweights

Mike Kyle vs. Shawn Jordan
Denis Goltsov vs. Nick Rossborough
Jared Rosholt vs. Valdrin Istrefi
Caio Alencar vs. Jake Heun
Josh Copeland vs. Jack May
Francimar Barroso vs. Daniel Gallemore

The other scheduled events are as follows:

June 21 — Chicago, Ill. — Chicago Theater

July 5 — Washington, DC. — GWU Smith Center

July 19 — Long Island, N.Y. — Nassau Coliseum

August 2 — Long Island, N.Y. — Nassau Coliseum

August 16 — Atlantic City, N.J. — Ocean Resort Casino

August 30 — Atlantic City, N.J. — Ocean Resort Casino

October 5: Playoff Event — Venue and city to be determined

October 13: Playoff Event — Venue and city to be determined

October 20: Playoff Event — Venue and city to be determined

December 31: Championship Event — Venue and city to be determined

Fighters will be drawn from the featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight divisions, with each roster being comprised of 12 competitors.

A bevy of standouts from the UFC, Bellator, WSOF, Strikeforce and other major promotions will be involved in the PFL season, including former titleholders Marcos Galvao, Lance Palmer, Will Brooks, Jake Shields, Brandon Halsey, and undefeated PFL featherweight champion Andre Harrison.

Other notable names are recently released UFC lightweights Rashid Magomedov and Chris Wade, Russian heavyweight prospect Denis Goltsov, and welterweight Abubakar Nurmagomedov, the younger brother of UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.

See the full rosters below:

Featherweight

Alexandre Almeida
Max Coga
Lee Coville
Marcos Galvao
Andre Harrison
Magomed Idrisov
Bekbulat Magomedov
Nazareno Malegarie
Lance Palmer
Steven Siler
Jumabieke Tuerxun
Timur Valiev

Lightweight

Will Brooks
Luiz Firmino
Brian Foster
Jason High
Yuki Kawana
Islam Mamedov
Rashid Magomedov
Ramsey Nijem
Natan Schulte
Thiago Tavares
Chris Wade
Robert Watley

Welterweight

Paul Bradley
Ray Cooper III
Pavel Kusch
Abubakar Nurmagomedov
Jake Shields
Rick Story
Herman Terrado
Bojan Velickovic
Yuri Villefort
Jonatan Westin
David Zawada
Joao Zeferino

Middleweight

Shamil Gamzatov
Anderson Goncalves
Eddie Gordon
Rex Harris
John Howard
Andre Lobato
Abus Magomedov
Bruno Santos
Sadibou Sy
Louis Taylor
Gasan Umalatov
Danillo Villefort

Light Heavyweight

Jamie Abdallah
Bazigit Ataev
Jason Butcher
Rakim Cleveland
Maxim Grishin
Brandon Halsey
Vinny Magalhaes
Ronny Markes
Sean O’Connell
Smealinho Rama
Dan Spohn
Rashid Yusupov

Heavyweight

Caio Alencar
Francimar Barroso
Josh Copeland
Daniel Gallemore
Denis Goltsov
Jake Heun
Valdrin Istrefi
Shawn Jordan
Mike Kyle
Jack May
Jared Rosholt
Nick Rossborough

Standings will be determined via a points system, with wins being worth three points and draws being worth one. Additional points will be rewarded for first-round finishes (three points), second-round finishes (two points), and third-round finishes (one point). Everyone will fight two times with the top eight in each division advancing to a single-elimination playoff tournament, per MMAjunkie.

In total, $10,000,000 is being allocated for prize money, with playoff runner-ups receiving $200,000, semifinal finishers $100,000, and quarter-final finishers $50,000.

The PFL is partnering with NBC and Facebook, with a pre-fight show, preliminaries, and a post-fight show airing on Facebook, and the main cards airing on NBCSN. The regular season will air on Thursdays.

Read the full release from the PFL here.