Gegard Mousasi won’t be the only Bellator fighter to be negatively impacted by the Professional Fighters League (PFL) merger at the end of 2023.
Last week (Friday, April 19, 2024), welterweight contestant Saba Homasi took the fight. twitter “Fighters involved in the PFL-Bellator merger are not being compensated for surgeries or hospitalizations,” the statement said. Either way, that’s the problem with the 29-fight, 35-year-old veteran.
In early 2024, Homasi began noticing delays in the generally quick approval process he had with Bellator fighters’ insurance and promotions representative, Ian Matthews. Unfortunately for Homasi, the surgery and post-injury recovery costs were out of pocket. He has yet to make amends for his previous fight, a first-round KO loss to Levan Chokeri in September 2023 in Dublin, Ireland.
“I broke my eye socket. I went from the venue to the hospital, so they knew everything that was wrong,” Homasi told MMA Mania at Sound & Pound. “They asked me if I was going to have the surgery in Ireland and I said ‘no’. I’m going to fly home and have the surgery at home with my doctor.”
“I went home and saw the doctor. I have a date set for the surgery, right?” he continued. “Then they called my doctor and asked if they could postpone the surgery for a couple of weeks. I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I have to go and have surgery. ”
Homasi claims that Matthews encouraged her to pay for all surgeries, blood tests, optometrist visits and other procedures out of her own pocket. There were no issues before Bellator was absorbed into his PFL, so he sent me a receipt.
“One day we tried to get in touch with Ian, but we couldn’t get in touch with Ian. He completely ghosted us,” Homasi said. “Ian didn’t forward those receipts to anyone, that’s fine. I still have everything. Just the fact that he’s supposed to help me, no one has any S—T. Then all of a sudden he ghosts us. Why don’t you just be a guy about it? If you don’t work for that company anymore, you have nothing to do with it, just tell us. You can find out who’s who.”
MMA Mania has reached out to Matthews and will update this article if we hear back. According to sources, Matthews is no longer affiliated with Bellator or PFL, despite his LinkedIn page suggesting otherwise.
Unfortunately for Homasi, he is not in the form the promotion released him during the transition period. Mr Homasi, who was “devastated” to hear the news, plans to give PFL a profit for now and move forward with the hope of repaying the outstanding balance. He is in talks with Gamebred Bare Knuckle regarding his next move and will not be able to make his debut until Jorge Masvidal’s Nate Diaz boxing rematch in two months (Saturday, June 1, 2024).
“My net worth is somewhere between $30,000 and $32,000,” Homasi said. “So now I’m starting to get a little worried, okay, what’s going on here?
“My manager has been in touch with PFL, and PFL has told him to get in touch with Viacom, but I don’t know if they are accusing each other,” he continued. “It’s really crazy that things like this are happening at this level. We’ve got to take care of our fighters, dude. They’re risking their lives every time they fight.”
