Bellator never die?
The influence of the now-defunct MMA brand is all over the welterweight field of this year’s inaugural PFL World Tournament, with a trio of former champions — Jason Jackson, Andrey Koreshkov and Logan Storley — highlighting the group of eight.
Impressive as the competition may be, the last man to hold the Bellator MMA welterweight crown before its late 2023 sale to PFL has no doubt who’s coming out on top.
“I’ll beat them all if they stand across the cage from me,” Jackson told The Post prior to Tuesday’s reveal of the welterweight tournament roster. “Beating them all, every single one, and win this tournament, get that belt, and get the funds that come with it.”
The referenced “funds” are a $500,000 prize to the seven men and one woman who emerge from the eight divisional brackets to be staged throughout the year.
That’s half of what champions of the PFL season winners received before the tournament format took its place coming into 2025.
The first-round matchups begin April 3 in Orlando, Fla., in the Universal Studios backlot, followed by semifinals starting June 12 and wrapping up with the finals over three events beginning Aug. 1 and all events airing on ESPN platforms.
Matchups were not yet announced by PFL, but one name stood out from the crowd in Jackson’s mind: Koreshkov.
“Been on my radar a few times,” said the Jamaican, who moved to South Florida as an adolescent. “We were in the Bellator field, but for some reason, I leaped over him.”
Indeed, Jackson (18-5, nine finishes) put together an eight-fight win streak after dropping his Bellator debut, picking up notable victories over ex-UFC lightweight champ Benson Henderson, Paul Daley and Douglas Lima before a knockout of Yaroslav Amosov to capture the Bellator crown in November 2023, just days before the promotion’s sale was announced.
After defeating former two-time PFL season winner Ray Cooper III at the one-off PFL vs. Bellator event in last February, Jackson’s title run ended with a decision loss to Ramazan Kuramagomedov in June.
Jackson, while noting he will need “a little finesse and fun and relaxing” and not simply “brute strength” to win the PFL tournament, said he did not show those elements in his last fight against Kuramagomedov.
“The mental part of [the fight] kind of caught up to me,” Jackson says. “… First thing I had to do [after the fight was] take a deep step back and study myself. That’s the first thing I did.
“I studied, I looked for the problem within myself and see where I went wrong and assess it and work on new things and spend time growing outside the family — outside the gym, which is my family — and teaching my son, my kids the way of being a better human being because that’s all that counts at the end of days: the good that you do and the good that you left on this Earth.”
Jackson has been champing at the bit to get back in the cage since the loss. He wanted a fight with Lorenz Larkin, who knocked out Levan Chokheli in September in his final fight with PFL.
“I wanted anybody just to show them that they messed up on me, that they did me wrong, why I couldn’t be myself that night and fulfill my obligation,” Jackson said. “They interfered with that.”
That’s the beauty of participating in the tournament: It is a set schedule, provided he holds up his end by winning and staying healthy and on weight.
Tournaments used to be the big thing in Bellator, first in its early years in the late aughts and early 2010s and, in recent years, with its grand prix format.
But for Jackson, this marks his first time he gets to participate, and he’s all in.
“I feel great because know I know, on paper, you have to give me a fight if I win,” Jackson said. “I don’t have to sit and say, ‘When is my next fight?’ Now, I have to [have a fight] by law; it said on a paper I signed, so there’s no argument about nothing of me being busy or inactive or something of that nature.”
Joining the ex-Bellator champs are 2024 PFL season finalist Magomed Umalatov, Bellator alumni Mukhamed Berkhamov and Masayuki Kikuiri, 2024 PFL Europe tournament champion Florim Zendeli, and “The Ultimate Fighter” Season 32 competitor Giannis Bachar.
If needed, Dmitrii Hrytsenko and Joseph Luciano are the designated alternates for the welterweight bracket.
The featherweight field was also announced Wednesday morning.
Jesus Pinedo, Gabriel Braga, Adam Borics, Movlid Khaybulaev, Jeremy Kennedy, Yves Landu, Nathan Kelly and Tae Kyun Kim comprise the roster at 145 pounds.
The most notable of the octet is Pinedo, the 2023 PFL season winner who has not competed since defeating Braga for the crown.
Frederick Dupras and Nathan Ghareeb will serve as alternates.
The rosters for the other six weight classes will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
