Watch Brendan Loughnane and Chris Wade’s fiery face-to-face as MMA rivals battle for PFL’s $1m winner-take-all finale
MMA rivals Brendan Loughnane and Chris Wade got heated in a fiery face-to-face ahead of their grudge match.
The 145lb featherweight pair meet in the Professional Fighters League semi-final, having won their two regular season bouts to qualify.
And after making the playoffs, they will settle their score on Saturday night at the Copper Box Arena.
Victory will put one man into the $1million winner-take-all finale fight while earning bragging rights in doing so.
Britain’s Loughnane, 32, and American Wade, 34, went back and forth as SunSport sat between the bitter enemies at News UK’s HQ.
Wade was beaten by Movlid Khaybulaev in last season’s final and reached the 155lb lightweight semis twice before that.
Loughnane also lost to Khaybulaev, in the last four, and Wade is not convinced by his opponent’s rise through the ranks.
He said: “I’m trying to figure out how you make the money that you make because you haven’t done s***. You haven’t done anything.
“You lost a UFC fight then you came over here like it was the second coming of Conor McGregor and you’ve done f***ing nothing.
“You’ve lost one semi-final? What have you done? I was at 55′ twice and made the semi-finals, twice.
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“A weight class above us, I was a winning fighter in the UFC. I was in the finals my first year at 145 and you’re running your mouth.”
But Loughnane hit back: “Imagine doing all of that and no one cares about you. Nobody gives a f*** about you.”
The animosity has continued to build ahead of their co-headline fight in London.
But both refuse to believe the bitterness will affect the level of their performance, instead only increase it.
Loughnane said: “I’m stone cold, bro. This guy has brought the best training camp out of me, honest to God.
“I didn’t even know I could go to the places that I’ve gone to in this training camp. He’s brought the best out of me.
“I trained my f***ing ass off more than ever. It’s proper, proper motivated me to a whole another level, so thank you for that.”
Wade finds himself driven to take home the life-changing cheque that he came so close to earning last year.
He revealed: “This has kept me up at night.
“After the Movlid fight, just thinking about how I let my daughter down and I let some of the people in my family down that I could’ve provided for over more of a long time.
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“It got me emotional, it got me upset and when I sit and dwell on it, that’s my real driving force, to be able to take care of her and really give her some of the things in life that some other people don’t get.
“Not to spoil her, not to ruin her, but just to make sure things are taken care of. And that’s where my head stays.”
- Tickets for the 2022 PFL Playoffs from Copperbox Arena, are available now via Ticketmaster