Daniel Marcos went 5-1 in the UFC, but the promotion still decided not to offer him a new contract following his win over Miles Johns in November. Six months later, the 18-1 bantamweight was informed of his release and ended up joining the PFL.<\/p>\n
Ready for his league debut Saturday against Magomed Magomedov at PFL Tampa, Marcos still has no idea why the UFC wasn\u2019t interested in offering him a new deal. The Peruvian talent lost only once in the UFC, dropping a decision to Montel Jackson in May 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than anything, I was surprised,.\u201d Marcos told MMA Fighting. \u201cI asked myself, \u2018Why? Why did this happen?\u2019 I had only lost once in my entire career, so I didn\u2019t understand what was going on. As I said, I can\u2019t control what other people decide to do, but I\u2019m still grateful to the UFC for giving me the opportunity and for helping showcase me to the world. But even now, if someone asks me what happened, I don\u2019t have an answer. I honestly don\u2019t know what happened. That\u2019s all I can say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old Peruvian talent last fought in November and his release came in late May. Marcos had been training since January in hopes of a new bout, but the offer never came.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been very difficult,\u201d Marcos said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to learn that you\u2019re no longer going to be part of a company. But after everything, I feel much calmer now because I trust God a lot, and I know that what\u2019s coming next will be very good. I still have that desire to prove more of what I\u2019m capable of. I still have the energy and motivation to show that I belong among the elite and that I still had much more to offer. I have many ways to show everything I can do, but things happened this way and I respect everyone\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
MMA Fighting broke the news of his departure on May 29, and PFL reached out to his management team the following day with an offer to sign him to a multi-fight deal. Marcos said a Russian-based MMA promotion also expressed interest in signing him, but PFL was quicker to get the deal done.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity with the PFL came as soon as I was told there would be no contract renewal with the UFC,\u201d Marcos said. \u201cIt all happened very fast. These are things I can\u2019t control, and I still don\u2019t know why everything happened with my previous UFC contract. I\u2019m happy to be part of a new organization like the PFL, which opened its doors to me. At the same time, regarding the UFC, I feel like I still had a lot more to give. Right now, I\u2019m staying focused and keeping my eyes on what lies ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy focus immediately turned to the PFL because they came knocking right away,\u201d he continued. \u201cI said to myself, \u2018I\u2019m not going to waste an opportunity that\u2019s being presented to me.\u2019 It was the opportunity in front of me, and I took it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Magomedov won a decision over Leandro Higo in his most recent bout to rebound from a knockout defeat to Sergio Pettis. Marcos said, \u201cmy approach is always to come out aggressively and assert my dominance in every aspect of the fight\u201d at PFL Tampa. Victorious in 18 of 19 bouts as a professional, Marcos is already aiming for PFL gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always look ahead,\u201d Marcos said. \u201cI always look at the guys at the top. The way I think is to look at the No. 1 guy, and that\u2019s Pettis. Pettis is at the top. I want to have that belt around my waist as soon as possible, whenever the opportunity comes. I\u2019ve signed a multi-fight deal with the PFL, and I\u2019m very hungry. I\u2019m hungry to show my skills and let the world see everything I\u2019m capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Marcos went 5-1 in the UFC, but the promotion still decided not to offer him a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8943,132453,132454,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-377105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-latest-news","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}