Professional Fighters League’s second chapter in Africa begins with raucous Pretoria fight night

After the huge success of the Professional Fighters League (PFL) debut season in Africa a year ago, the US-based mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion kicked off season two in emphatic fashion in Pretoria last week.

The opening fight night of the 2026 PFL ­edition took place at the SunBet Arena on 10 April and featured 11 fights. Five South African fighters featured in four fights, and the home favourites were victorious in all their battles. The only South African who lost was Shannon van Tonder, who was defeated by compatriot Asiashu Tshitamba by unanimous decision in one of the showcase fights.

Overall, it was a memorable event as thousands of MMA enthusiasts poured into the venue for five hours of strategic punching, kicking and submission moves.

In the passionate audience were other South African sports stars, such as Springbok captain Siya Kolisi, with his girlfriend Rachel John, and Olympic Games gold medallist Wayde van Niekerk.

MMA star Dricus du Plessis, who is affiliated with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), was also present. In fact, Du Plessis was in Justin Clarke’s corner on the night as the Pretoria-based heavyweight defeated Senegalese giant Abdoulaye Kane by TKO in the first round.

Superman Clarke

Clarke was outmatched for size and height, which was evident at the start of the fight. However, the backing of a raucous home crowd spurred on the 38-year-old when it looked like defeat was imminent.

After a ferocious exchange between the two heavyweights, Clarke connected with a strong hook and floored his rival – sending the thousands in the crowd into cacophonous cheers as the referee ended the contest.

After the match (with blood still trickling from his nose as evidence of the brutality he had endured before turning the tables on Kane), Clarke offered journalists a peek into what is taking place in his mind ahead of such major occasions.

“I still need to work on the mental side of things, especially when it comes to the day of the fight,” he admitted. “I find that’s a very tough area that not many people pay attention to.

“When you wake up on fight day, it’s a very weird feeling. You’re stuck in something like a limbo. You try to keep yourself busy. But I get feelings of dread because it almost feels like you’re walking to an execution. Which is a bad way to look at it,” the bruiser said.

“But then you break out of that and feel good again, telling yourself ‘I’m going to destroy this guy’. It’s a constant roller coaster of emotions, from fear to excitement. It’s everything in a single cocktail.

“Anyway, that’s just the way I experience it and I believe I still need to work on that.”

South Africa’s MMA DNA

While the likes of Clarke and welterweight fighter Peace Nguphane (who defeated Guinea-Bissau’s Yabna “Panther” N’Tchalá by unanimous decision) shone in the first event of season two, Nkosi Ndebele, PFL Africa’s 2025 bantamweight champion, also had reason to be ecstatic.

Ndebele won his first fight of the 2026 season, downing Italian Michele Clemente by unanimous decision in the main event. Speaking after his fight, the Diepsloot-­raised fighter shared his pride at fighting in his home province for the first time in almost a decade.

Ndebele made his name in Gauteng before moving overseas to pursue his ­passion of professionally pounding people’s faces. He is now based in Bali, Indonesia.

“If you speak about MMA, there’s no way you cannot mention South Africa. The first fight night of 2026 gave everyone an opportunity to see this through the platform created by PFL Africa. The talent we have was clearly on display and we showed that we deserve to be mentioned among the best in the world. We just need more platforms to prove ourselves,” Ndebele said.

Chasing the UFC

Dana White’s UFC is the pinnacle for MMA stars around the globe, but the way the PFL is operating may soon have the two American companies on par in terms of prestige. Whereas the UFC has been around since 1993, the PFL was founded in 2017 by US businessman Donn Davis.

Through its infiltration of the African market, the PFL wants to shape the landscape of MMA in the country. Also central to the promotion’s mandate is the focus on African MMA stars being able to fight in their own backyards while earning purses of ­global standards.

PFL Africa is a conveyor belt for fighters to join the PFL’s global roster once they have proven themselves continentally. This path is imminent for someone such as Ndebele.

“We act. We don’t just talk. We put our money where our mouth is. We say Africa is important and we believe in the talent coming out of the continent. Hence, we’ve shown up in Africa and delivered world-class fights with world-class athletes,” said Elias Schulze, PFL Africa’s general manager.

“We don’t want to be the only global league coming into Africa. We believe in a free and competitive atmosphere. So let the others come. But we started in this market and we continue to invest in Africa and will still have the best fighters, no matter who comes after.”

Making Africa work

Schulze also told Daily Maverick that the hope of the promotion’s hierarchy is that they will be able to create a self-sustaining league that will not only provide Africa’s best fighters with a solid platform, but ­also benefit the PFL itself by providing it with first-hand access to these future stars before they make it big.

“We were in South Africa for the first two PFL Africa fight nights. So, it was a no-brainer for us to come back and kick off an even bigger season with a massive blowout in ­Pretoria. It’s one of the best venues across Africa, made special by Nkosi ‘King’ Ndebele making his homecoming,” Schulze said. “It was an obligation; we had to return to the heartbeat of the MMA community in Africa – South Africa.

“We have ambitious targets this year and we’re on a path to achieve sustainability. Ultimately, if you look at Africa, it’s not that the continent cannot sustain the introduction of pan-African, professional and globally relevant sports leagues. The issue is that usually investors have to build from the ground up,” he added.

“One of the ways things can be made easier is by reorienting the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by African broadcasters for European sports leagues, which is fine. But imagine if about 10% of that money was redirected to the continent to advance what ultimately will become a global export.”

The next chapter of the promotion’s African chapter will be written in Nigeria on ­13 June. In 2025, which was the PFL’s first chapter in Africa, the league visited Rwanda and Benin, in addition to stops in Cape Town and Johannesburg. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.