Bubba
Jenkins believes is he is deserving of prominent placement on
any Professional Fighters League card he occupies.
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Jenkins is coming off a victory against Kyle
Bochniak at PFL 2 in which he dropped his opponent on multiple
occasions in an entertaining unanimous decision victory. Jenkins
will meet Reinaldo
Ekson in a regular season bout at PFL 5 at Overtime Elite Arena
in Atlanta, on Friday night. Ekson is a late opponent change for
Sabi Bologahi, who withdrew from the featherweight bout a little
less than a week before the event.
“It pisses me off. It always pisses me off,” Jenkins said of the
opponent change. “I hate when they change the opponent because
we’re focused on a lot of tendencies, we’re focusing on weakness,
we’re focusing on things that my opponent does badly that I do
well. This time was even later than the last change, so they
changed it basically in the last week and we’re got to deal with
that. I hate opponent changes. Give me the same person that I can
prepare for for eight weeks and you’ll get the best ‘Bad Man’ you
can possibly see.”
As someone who has competed for organizations such as Bellator,
Brave Combat Federation and Absolute Championship Berkut, Jenkins
has designs on being the face of the PFL. Thus far, though, he
hasn’t received top billing on the promotion’s events.
“I want to carry the brand,” he said. “I want to carry who I am. I
have declined other organization’s contracts. I believe it’s
because of my ability to speak, my ability to entertain and still
put on good shows. I guess I can say there were some bad
performances last year. But honestly, everytime I hit the big shows
I put on a great performance…We need to get some knockouts out
there, maybe get a little more hungry … We’re gonna try to get that
done this time. I guess maybe with putting them out and then saying
what I need to say afterwards will get me on the bigger cards.”
Jenkins has gone the distance in all of his PFL appearances thus
far, so he is aware that finishing opponents will raise his profile
in the future.
“We put on a show regardless. I put on a show in sparring. I
put on a show in the back hitting mittts. I am a show. When PFL
starts understanding that, we’ll get on the big card,” Jenkins
said.
Of course, the best way to do that is to win the PFL
championship at featherweight.
“I believe it’s Bad Man vs. Bad Man,” he said. “I will be a
world champion in the next four months. I will be a millionaire in
the next four months. It’s almost inevitable in my mind.”