“It’s just crazy that something like this at this level is happening. You gotta take care of your fighters, man. They put their lives on the line every time they fight.”
Gegard Mousasi isn’t the only Bellator fighter being negatively affected by the Professional Fighters League (PFL) merger in late 2023.
Last week (Fri., April 19, 2024), Welterweight competitor, Sabah Homasi, took to Twitter claiming fighters “that got caught up in the PFL-Bellator merger have not been reimbursed for surgeries and hospitalization.” That’s been the 35-year-old 29-fight veteran’s issue, anyway.
Homasi started to notice a delay in the generally speedy approval process he’d go through with Bellator fighter insurance and promotion representative, Ian Matthews, at the start of 2024. Unfortunately for Homasi, his out-of-pocket surgery and recovery expenses after his last fight — a September 2023 first round knockout loss to Levan Chokheli in Dublin, Ireland — have yet to be compensated for.
“I fractured my orbital. Went from the venue to the hospital so they knew everything that was wrong,” Homasi told MMA Mania on Sound & Pound. “They asked me if I was going to do surgery in Ireland and I said, ‘No. I’m gonna fly home and do surgery with my doctors back home.’
“I came home, we saw my doctor. I have a date for surgery, right?” he continued. “Next thing you know, they call my doctor and ask him if he can postpone surgery for two-three weeks. I said, ‘Absolutely not. I have to go and operate.’”
Homasi claims Matthews suggested he go ahead and pay out of pocket to get his procedure and blood work done, see the optometrist, and everything the process entailed. He’d send his receipts over and that would be that, as there were never any issues before Bellator was absorbed by PFL.
“One day, we’re trying to get ahold of Ian, can’t get a hold of Ian, he’s completely ghosted us,” Homasi said. “Ian never forwarded those receipts to anybody, which is okay. I still have everything. It’s not a problem, but just the fact that we’re in contact with this man and he’s supposed to be helping me out, no one has anything that I said to him. No one has s—t. Then all the sudden he just ghosts us. Like why don’t you just be a man about it? If you’re no longer working for the company, you have nothing to do with it, just go ahead and tell us. That way we can get in touch with who is.”
MMA Mania has reached out to Matthews and will update this story if a response is received. Per sources, Matthews is no longer with Bellator or PFL despite his LinkedIn page suggesting otherwise.
Unfortunately for Homasi, he is not as the promotion released him during the transitional period. “Crushed” when he heard the news, Homasi is giving PFL the benefit of the doubt at the moment and moving on while hoping to get his owed reimbursement. For his next move, he’s in discussions with Gamebred Bareknuckle, where he wouldn’t debut until after Jorge Masvidal’s Nate Diaz boxing rematch in two months (Sat., June 1, 2024).
“I’m somewhere between $30,000 and $32,000 out of pocket,” Homasi said. “So, now I’m starting to be a little bit worried like, okay, what’s going on here?
“My manager’s in contact with PFL, PFL’s saying to get in contact with Viacomm, I don’t know if they’re pointing the finger back and forth at each other,” he continued. “It’s just crazy that something like this at this level is happening. You gotta take care of your fighters, man. They put their lives on the line every time they fight.”