Bubba Jenkins Hopes to ‘Carry’ PFL Brand, Eyes More Prominent Card Placement

Bubba Jenkins believes is he is deserving of prominent placement on any Professional Fighters League card he occupies.

  Jenkins is coming off a victory against Kyle Bochniak at PFL 2 in which he dropped his opponent on multiple occasions in an entertaining unanimous decision victory. Jenkins will meet Reinaldo Ekson in a regular season bout at PFL 5 at Overtime Elite Arena in Atlanta, on Friday night. Ekson is a late opponent change for Sabi Bologahi, who withdrew from the featherweight bout a little less than a week before the event.

“It pisses me off. It always pisses me off,” Jenkins said of the opponent change. “I hate when they change the opponent because we’re focused on a lot of tendencies, we’re focusing on weakness, we’re focusing on things that my opponent does badly that I do well. This time was even later than the last change, so they changed it basically in the last week and we’re got to deal with that. I hate opponent changes. Give me the same person that I can prepare for for eight weeks and you’ll get the best ‘Bad Man’ you can possibly see.”

As someone who has competed for organizations such as Bellator, Brave Combat Federation and Absolute Championship Berkut, Jenkins has designs on being the face of the PFL. Thus far, though, he hasn’t received top billing on the promotion’s events.

“I want to carry the brand,” he said. “I want to carry who I am. I have declined other organization’s contracts. I believe it’s because of my ability to speak, my ability to entertain and still put on good shows. I guess I can say there were some bad performances last year. But honestly, everytime I hit the big shows I put on a great performance…We need to get some knockouts out there, maybe get a little more hungry … We’re gonna try to get that done this time. I guess maybe with putting them out and then saying what I need to say afterwards will get me on the bigger cards.”

Jenkins has gone the distance in all of his PFL appearances thus far, so he is aware that finishing opponents will raise his profile in the future.

  “We put on a show regardless. I put on a show in sparring. I put on a show in the back hitting mittts. I am a show. When PFL starts understanding that, we’ll get on the big card,” Jenkins said.

  Of course, the best way to do that is to win the PFL championship at featherweight.

  “I believe it’s Bad Man vs. Bad Man,” he said. “I will be a world champion in the next four months. I will be a millionaire in the next four months. It’s almost inevitable in my mind.”