PFL World Tournament Atlantic City Recap: Thad Jean and Movlid Khaybulaev capture tournament gold

Last night the PFL made it’s way to Atlantic City and we saw two world tournament champions crowned. The welterweights and featherweights took center stage and two undefeated fighters kept their undefeated records while winning this year’s tournament.

Starting in the featherweight division, Movlid Khaybulaev (24-0-1) put on the performance of his life against 2023 PFL champion Jesus Pinedo (25-6-1). Since jumping to the PFL, Pinedo had essentially ran through his competition. He had looked like a destroyer and a promotional star which is why he was the betting favorite last night, but Khaybulaev was having none of it.

From the first round, you could tell that Pinedo was going to have problems. Khaybulaev took him down throughout the fight at will and there was only one real moment of danger for him. He was dropped in the third round but immediately secured a takedown to recover. Ultimately, he locked in an arm triangle in the fifth to win the PFL Featherweight World Tournament.

In the welterweight division, I thought that Thad Jean (11-0) should have been a massive favorite against Logan Storley (18-4). Surprisingly, the odds were much closer than expected, but the fight wasn’t close at all. Jean had his way with Storley for the most part and outside of some late takedowns, this was one-way traffic for Jean. The fight went all five rounds and Jean won a unanimous decision to win the PFL Welterweight World Tournament.