CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The Professional Fighters League (PFL) hit the ground running in Africa at a sold-out GrandWest Arena on July 19, leaving chairman Donn Davis in no doubt about the continent's potential as the show moves to Johannesburg on Aug 9.
Close to 5,000 fans attended the quarter-finals in the PFL Africa heavyweight and bantamweight tournaments. Costello van Steenis ended Johnny Eblen's 16-fight winning run by submission to become the new Middleweight World Champion.
In the women's cards, crowd-favourite flyweight Dakota Ditcheva beat Sumiko Inaba by submission in one of five Champions Series bouts, while earlier in the night Nigeria's Juliet Ukah beat South Africa's Ceileigh Niedermayr in a strawweight showcase.
The PFL's African launch now moves to Johannesburg's Carnival City, a traditional combat sports venue in the country, on Saturday. Featherweight and welterweight fighters will contest their PFL quarterfinals, with Nigeria's Patrick Ocheme and Mohamed Camara the main bout.
"It's been thrilling to build a global sports league with so many fans and so many fighters. Most of my companies I've built over the last three decades haven't been as global and haven't been as expansive as the PFL," chairman Davis told ESPN.
The NBA opened up its first office in Africa in 2010, setting up in Johannesburg. The NBA Academy Africa opened in Saly, Senegal, in 2017, and the Basketball Africa League launched in 2021 and recently concluded its fifth season. Previously, the NBA hosted exhibition games in Africa in 2015, 2017 and 2018.
The NFL has also made inroads in Africa with a series of fan engagements and talent camps since their 2022 launch in Ghana. The PFL's direct competitor, the UFC, has often floated the idea of hosting an event in Africa in recent years, but has struggled to find a venue that is to CEO Dana White's liking.
The PFL's approach has differed from other American-based sports leagues in terms of speed of movement. This was the first event the league has held on the continent, and it already featured both competitive African and Champions Series bouts.
Davis explained the pace of the league's launch in Africa: "What's most helpful is competition. Competition is more helpful [than talent development without it].
"For us, that's what we're very much focused on - the PFL Africa League - four events this year, growing to six events in coming years against top talent on a big stage.
"There's no way to get better [by] just practicing. The best way to get better as a fighter is to truly get tested inside the cage. We're doing what few others have done.
"People can put on academies; people can do coaching - but competition where you get paid and where if you lose, you go home, and you're on the biggest streaming and TV platforms - that's the only way you really get sharp."
In fairness, the PFL's launch was facilitated by an established competitive MMA infrastructure built largely upon the success of the Johannesburg-based Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) - founded in 2009.
However, they also brought in fighters with African roots who had made names for themselves away from home. One notable home favourite was Nkosi Ndebele, who fights out of Bali. The South African beat Egypt's Mahmoud Atef by TKO to set up a PFL Africa Bantamweight semi-final clash with Zimbabwe's Simbarashe Hokonya.
Ndebele told journalists after the fight: "I'm feeling great in front of my home crowd, my people - fans and family - this was my first time being back in South Africa [for a fight since 2018]... Great things are coming. The PFL is giving us an opportunity to showcase our skills as African fighters."
As far as international talent goes, the most distinguished name in the building in Cape Town by some distance was Khabib Nurmagomedov. He showed support to Russian Champions Series fighters under his mentorship - lightweight Artur Zaynukov, who beat Takeshi Izumi, and featherweight Akhmed Magomedov, who lost to AJ McKee.
While Nurmagomedov had the crowd buzzing, there was one notable and unexplained absentee - PFL Africa chairman Francis Ngannou.
"You have to ask Francis [why he was not present]... I'm not going to hide it - I expected him [at GrandWest]. This is part of his vision, so that all those fighters out there don't have to leave the continent like he did. We worked for two years," Davis told the media at the event.
"I'm direct and say what I think - I'm disappointed."
The winners of the PFL Africa knockout tournament finals in Benin this December will subsequently compete against top fighters from other regions to be crowned world champion.