PFL CEO opens door to Usman Nurmagomedov UFC move after July 31 title defense
The unbeaten lightweight champion fights out his deal against Archie Colgan at UBS Arena, and John Martin says he won’t stand in the way of a UFC move.
Usman celebrates defending his lightweight Bellator title with his cousin and corner, UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov (source: PFL)
PFL CEO John Martin says Usman Nurmagomedov is free to leave for the UFC after his July 31 bout against Archie Colgan at UBS Arena on Long Island. The fight is the final one on the unbeaten lightweight champion’s contract, the deal he inherited when PFL acquired Bellator in 2023. Martin isn’t pretending otherwise.
Speaking to Bloody Elbow, Martin acknowledged Nurmagomedov’s stated ambition to pursue the UFC lightweight title and said the promotion would not block a move. That’s a notable posture for a CEO sitting on a 21-0 (1 NC) champion still in his prime, with the surname of one former UFC titleholder and the training base of the current one.
It also tells you where PFL’s head is at under Martin, the former Turner CEO who took the chair as the organisation worked through the financial hangover of its bigger swings. The Francis Ngannou signing, in particular, became a case study in what happens when a promotion bets the marketing budget on one name and gets two fights in two years for the trouble.
Martin’s pitch now is roster-and-brand first, star-dependent second. In practice, that has meant dropping the tournament format the PFL was built on, leaning on single-card matchmaking and a deeper bench, and re-tuning the economics around recurring programming rather than tentpole pay-per-view spend. Whether that’s a strategic conviction or a financial necessity probably depends on who you ask inside the building, and the answer matters more given the PFL’s US broadcast deal with ESPN expires at the end of 2026, with FOX and Netflix among the options Martin has publicly flagged as potential 2027 homes.
The Colgan booking fits the pattern. Colgan is 13-0, a credible domestic name coming off a unanimous decision over Jay-Jay Wilson in October, and the fight headlines a Long Island card in a building the promotion has used before. Nurmagomedov is favoured. He’s also the cousin of Khabib Nurmagomedov and trains alongside lightweight champion Islam Makhachev at AKA in San Jose under Javier Mendez, who has publicly called him the most talented fighter he has ever coached. The UFC’s matchmakers, presumably, have noticed.
Nurmagomedov last fought in February, taking out Alfie Davis by technical submission in his first defence as inaugural PFL lightweight champion. The Colgan booking is his second title defence and, as Martin confirmed to Heavy Sports last week, his last fight on the existing deal.
For over a decade I’ve watched promotions handle expiring star contracts in roughly two ways: pretend the fighter isn’t leaving until they’re already gone, or get ahead of the story and frame the exit on their own terms. Martin is doing the second thing, which is rarer than it sounds. It is also, given Nurmagomedov’s leverage, probably the only honest move available.
The lightweight implications are the obvious downstream story. The UFC’s 155-pound division is currently anchored by Makhachev’s title reign, with Arman Tsarukyan, Charles Oliveira, Justin Gaethje, and the Topuria-Gaethje winner from UFC Freedom 250 in the picture. Adding an unbeaten Nurmagomedov, with the surname and the camp affiliation, would reshape the contender picture before he’d thrown a punch in the Octagon and force Makhachev’s team to address the AKA-stablemate question they have so far been able to avoid.
Nothing about the UFC side is confirmed. Nurmagomedov has spoken publicly about wanting to test himself there, and Martin has now publicly stepped out of the way, but a contract is a contract and the July 31 fight still has to happen. Archie Colgan, who presumably has his own opinions about being treated as a transition opponent, gets the chance to complicate the storyline. The co-main between unbeaten Dakota Ditcheva (15-0) and Denise Kielholtz at women’s flyweight gives the UBS Arena card a second meaningful headline name.
What Martin is signalling, beyond this one fighter, is that PFL under his watch is willing to let stars walk if the numbers don’t work. That’s a different operating philosophy than the one that produced the Ngannou deal. It’s also the kind of stance that gets tested the moment a champion with a recognisable last name is the one walking out the door.
The UBS Arena card goes July 31. After that, the lightweight conversation moves rooms.