The elimination of Brendan Loughnane from this year’s PFL season might’ve been a surprise to many but not to the man responsible for it, Jesus Pinedo.
Loughnane (26-5), the 2022 PFL featherweight champion, fell short in making the playoffs this year as he was stopped in the first round by Pinedo (21-6-1) in the main event of last week’s 2023 PFL 4 in Atlanta.
“I’ve said it many times, and I’ll say it again here: Ever since I signed with PFL, I came here to take the prize and be champion,” Pinedo told MMA Junkie in Spanish. “I didn’t come here just to see what happens or just try my luck. I’m aware that these are hard fights and that the rivals are difficult, but we’re at that level. We just proved it on Thursday. I felt like that first fight, we won it. For me, I’m not 1-1 in PFL; I’m 2-0.”
Pinedo had zero points entering the second and final fight of the season after losing a close split decision to Brazil’s Gabriel Alves Braga. On the other hand, Loughnane had a comfortable start, as he was first in the standings with five points, having picked up a second-round TKO over former UFC title challenger Marlon Moraes.
Pinedo needed a first-round finish to make it into the playoffs, and Loughnane just needed a win any way. It was a tough position to be in, but Pinedo liked the story that was getting set up for him.
“I knew that I was the underdog,” Pinedo said. “Many saw me as a lost cause and that Brendan was going to annihilate me, but in my mind, I was always thinking that I was going to win. I trained very hard for this fight and this moment.
“I didn’t take it as something bad. I took it as an opportunity that was going to catapult me. It was a main event fight against someone like Brendan – a great fighter. It was all on the table. It was just a matter of going there and taking it.”
The fight plan was perfectly executed by Pinedo. He and his team knew that they had no time to waste if they wanted to make the playoffs, so they specifically trained to come out to finish Loughnane in the first.
“We knew that we needed to come out and pressure, even just apart from wanting to get the six points, because Brendan is a very comfortable rival who knows how to move well in the cage, and we couldn’t let him find his rhythm,” Pinedo said. “We needed to come out and pressure because him backing up can’t fight as well. We picked that up from watching his fights. That was basically the tactic for the fight. Pressure, pressure from the very first second.”
The Peruvian fighter has all the intention in the world to leave 2023 as PFL featherweight champion. He knows there’s more work to be done, but for now, this KO over Loughnane remains the biggest of his career.
“Yeah, definitely,” Pinedo said. “This was the most important fight of my career because of how things went down. It was a main event in PFL, which is a world-class organization, the rival, a champion, all that set the stage for it to be the fight of my career. And it was also the toughest one of my career.”
