Bubba Jenkins: It’s My Time to Shine

Professional Fighters League 2022 Season featherweight runner-up Bubba Jenkins feels like a different fighter this year and believes his moment to shine is upon us.

Jenkins (20-6, 6-2 PFL) started the 2023 Regular Season on the right foot after defeating long-term rival Chris Wade in a much-heated rematch. In their first clash, Wade took home the victory after outpointing the “Bad Man” on all three scorecards. In their 2023 PFL 1 rematch, former Brave Combat Federation titleholder Jenkins proved his wrestling pedigree was too much to handle for Wade, leading to a unanimous decision victory. Now that Jenkins has evened the score with “The Long Island Killer,” he is looking ahead, and while he doesn’t discount the possibility that the rubber match with Wade might happen sooner or later, Jenkins is entirely focusing on joining the short-listed club of PFL featherweight champions in the likes of Lance Palmer, Movlid Khaybulaev and Brendan Loughnane.

“Any one of those 145-pounders can get it, honestly. I'm in a different platform, ‘Bad Man’ vs. ‘Bad Man,’ like we've been saying. Last year in the finals, our emotions got the best of us. We are looking forward to getting any other 145-pounders that even won or lost. At the end of the day, Movlid and Loughnane are probably the two front runners because they have a belt each, and I don't, so any one of them can get it, but I want it to mean something. I want it to matter. The next round is just a regular season match, so don't make sense to fight one of those guys then, but anybody can get it this year. Man, I'm really in another place.”

Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(00:58) Celebrating his victory
(02:47) Defeating Wade
(03:43) Being happy for having vindicated the defeat
(05:04) Whether Wade has done enough to earn his respect
(06:33) His thoughts on the Wade trilogy
(07:22) Looking to face Loughnane again
(08:24) The story behind his tattoo ‘relentless’
(09:24) Outro