Matt Brown is not hating on the PFL merger debate. He actually thinks the idea makes sense. What he is not buying is Jake Paul turning UFC pressure into a whole side quest, because in Brown’s view, that is walking into deep water without a life jacket.
Brown broke down the new combat-sports alliance on The Fighter vs. The Writer, where the retired UFC welterweight made it clear that more fighter options are good for the sport. The problem, according to Brown, is treating the UFC like another startup rival instead of the giant that has spent more than three decades becoming the default dream for MMA fighters.
Listen to the full podcast segment below:
Brown Likes The Move, But Not The War
The basic business play is not what bothered Brown. He sees why MVP and PFL would join forces, especially after Paul has made fighter pay and UFC contracts a central part of his public fight with Dana White. Brown just thinks there is a brutal ceiling here, and it is colored UFC red.
“I certainly think it’s a smart thing for both of those companies to do,” Brown said about the merger. “Come together, join forces, try to build something big. Unfortunately, they’re in a space where they’re still just going to be No. 2. They might get closer. Right now they’re kind of a distant No. 2, they might shred some space off of that distance, but they’re still just going to be No. 2. You’re not getting anywhere near the UFC.”
I agree with what [Dana White] said – “we’re competing with major leagues and shit, we’re not worried about what these peasants are doing” so to speak. He didn’t say it like that, but I think he’s totally right in saying that.
That is the awkward part of this whole thing. Paul has already framed the move like a fighter-first counterpunch, and his own social post leaned hard into that message.
I’m going to war for fighters.
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
In less than five years, MVP has disrupted the combat sports world, broken multiple viewership records, elevated women’s boxing to unprecedented heights, and produced some of the biggest events in the history of the sport.
This is no… pic.twitter.com/572gWzYHdQ
— Jake Paul (@jakepaul) July 31, 2026
Brown’s counter is simple. Publicity is nice. A bigger roster is nice. A louder microphone is nice. None of that means you can just pull up next to the UFC, roll the window down, and start revving the engine like you are at the same light.
“They’re trying to fight a dick-swinging contest with the UFC, right?” Brown said. “When you’re trying to outspend or try to get better fighters. You don’t have a chance. What I see MVP and PFL trying to do is a d*ck-swinging contest and it’s like you’ve got a f*cking limp d*ck over here.”
The Jake Paul’s and the MVP’s and the PFL’s of the world, it’s seemingly that they don’t understand all this stuff. It seems like they don’t. They try to get in this d*ck-swinging contest with Dana White. You’re barking up the wrong tree.
Brown also argued that the UFC’s biggest weapon is not just money. It is brand gravity. Young fighters still talk about reaching the Octagon as the top MMA achievement, and that matters when promotions start chasing prospects, veterans, and free agents.
The fact is in the fighting world, very, very few fighters/athletes are business minded. It’s generally younger kids with some f*cking screws loose, that’s why you go into MMA after college or whatever. You’ve got some f*cking screws loose and you want to fight the best of the best. That’s your entire goal as a martial artist, as a fighter. You want to fight the best.
“I guarantee 99.9% of fighters would go fight f*cking Jon Jones for $1,000 rather than f*cking some PFL guy for $50,000,” Brown said. “Just for the opportunity, the brand awareness and first and foremost, is just the opportunity to challenge yourself. That’s where fighters’ minds go.”
That does not mean Brown thinks MVP-PFL is dead on arrival. He pointed to BKFC as a smarter model because bare-knuckle boxing carved out its own lane instead of trying to replace the UFC.
The perfect example is BKFC. They carved out their own lane. They’re not threatening the UFC. The UFC actually works with [David] Feldman and BKFC. They enjoy each other’s company, each other’s business.
Paul and MVP may still create real leverage for fighters, especially if they keep throwing money and attention into MMA. Brown’s warning is that leverage is different from conquest. There is room to build a strong No. 2, but if the whole pitch is beating the UFC at its own game, Paul’s fighter-pay campaign may run into the same wall everyone else has hit.
Brown said the better path is finding something fresh instead of trying to win a budget-flexing contest with Dana White’s machine.
Jake Paul will certainly get them a lot of publicity and promotion. It will be kind of interesting to see how they play their cards. The MMA card, I’ve argued for a long time is not really the card to play but that seems to be the path they’re going.
After years of Brown speaking plainly about UFC star power and weeks of Paul jabbing at the UFC, his view is that MVP-PFL can help fighters more by building its own product than by selling itself as the promotion that can knock the UFC off the top.
