Longtime UFC veteran Jeremy Stephens has signed with the PFL for the promotion's 2022 season.
Stephens made the announcement on the latest edition of Ariel Helwani's show The MMA Hour and said the following about what led to his decision. The 35-year old Des Moines, Iowa native went 15-18-1 in his 34 Octagon appearances after debuting with the UFC back in May 2007. He was defeated via first-round submission due to a kimura in just 65 seconds by Mateusz Gamrot back at UFC Vegas 31 in his last UFC bout.
“I asked [the UFC] to give me a favorable matchup,” Stephens said (h/t MMA Fighting). “I’ve been fighting beasts, a murderers row for two decades, and I just felt like I was getting iced out. Only fighting once a year, that’s not good on the bank account. I’m just trying to be typical, just like you, I’m trying to provide for my family and the only way I can do that is to fight, and they weren’t really fighting me. I got options to go other places once that contract was up. I didn’t even realize I was up on the contract. Probably almost five months went by on the contract, and I didn’t realize my contract was up. I thought I had one more fight on there, and I searched my options and PFL, we’re gonna go do our best to knock everybody the f*ck out and get a million dollars. It’s a great organization, the fighters over there, the matchups, the potential. They’re gonna pay me a little bit more than the UFC, and I have a chance at a million dollars, which is doable, which I really love. Maybe go in there, win that million dollars, and I like the fact that they fight back to back, month after month. I’m not getting any younger. I love to constantly be fighting. I don’t like sitting and waiting for opponents six months down the road. I’d rather fight once every three months.”
"We're gonna do our best to knock everybody the f*ck out and get a million dollars."@LiLHeathenMMA confirms to @arielhelwani that he will compete as a lightweight for the PFL in 2022 -- #TheMMAHour
— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) January 31, 2022
https://t.co/VtyhuXvYld pic.twitter.com/2j1d3oe53x
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