{"id":833141,"date":"2026-07-29T07:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/833141\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T07:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T07:02:09","slug":"pfl-champ-thad-jean-is-top-three-in-the-world-and-only-casuals-disagree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/833141\/","title":{"rendered":"PFL champ Thad Jean is Top Three in the world, and only casuals disagree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Thad Jean believes he\u2019s one of the best Welterweights on the planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Undefeated at 12-0, the 28-year-old \u201cSilverback\u201d picked up a sensational knockout win over short-notice replacement Ernesto Rodriguez over the weekend to become PFL Welterweight champion <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/professional-fighters-league-pfl\/460198\/pfl-washington-results-recap-and-highlights-jean-tkos-gutsy-rodriguez-to-win-welterweight-title\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">(highlights here)<\/a>. Jean was supposed to face highly touted Russian ace Shamil Musaev, but unfortunately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/latest-news\/459251\/oh-no-pfl-washington-dc-loses-banger-main-event-two-days-before-showtime\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">weight cut issues cancelled that matchup<\/a> at the last second.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Regardless, Jean is an athletic talent with power in his hands, and he\u2019s already beaten tough competition like Jason Jackson, Logan Storley, and Mukhamed Berkhamov. Unfortunately, PFL athletes don\u2019t always receive the respect they deserve since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/professional-fighters-league-pfl\/458918\/opinion-pfl-is-on-an-incredible-run-but-no-one-is-watching\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">relatively few people are tuning in<\/a>, it can be tough to sell their top fighters as legitimate world-class talent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Sounds like \u201ccasual\u201d thinking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201dI\u2019m up there. I\u2019m top 3,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/uncrownedcombat\/status\/2082240439399141409\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jean told Uncrowned<\/a> after going down the list of UFC rankings. \u201cI know people talk trash about the PFL and say, \u2018Oh, because you\u2019re in the PFL, you\u2019re nothing.\u2019 The level of fighters in the PFL are just as high as the people in the UFC. The reason you don\u2019t understand that and the reason you don\u2019t think so, is because you\u2019re a casual. You\u2019re not a true MMA fan. You don\u2019t understand the game as much as you hope or think you do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cI\u2019m at the top of the PFL division. I\u2019m the champion, and there\u2019s nothing that would stop me from being the welterweight champion in the UFC as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">In recent years, we have seen plenty of non-UFC champions come over to the Octagon and immediately make waves, like Yaroslav Amosov. There\u2019s no denying that talent exists outside of the UFC roster, but for better or worse, it\u2019s hard to get most fight fans to really care. In order for anyone to really buy Jean as a Top Three Welterweight, he\u2019s going to need to rack up some title defenses over quality opposition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Rebooking the Musaev fight would be a great start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thad Jean believes he\u2019s one of the best Welterweights on the planet. Undefeated at 12-0, the 28-year-old \u201cSilverback\u201d&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,8810,82],"class_list":["post-833141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-professional-fighters-league-pfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}