Fair to say that the majority of the human population has never been knocked out.
Brendan Loughnane used to be able to say that, which is remarkable given he’s been a professional fighter since 2010 who, in 2022, won the PFL featherweight season and its $1 million prize.
After last June’s loss to eventual 2023 champ Jesus Pinedo, though, Loughnane joined the minority, and the experience was, he says after a pause, “interesting.”
“I didn’t even know where I was for about 15 minutes. I was just like, ‘What just happened?’ Didn’t really know; strange feeling,” Loughnane told The Post during a recent video call. “But I can finally say I’ve actually seen it all in MMA. I’ve knocked 15 people out. I’ve been knocked out. I’ve lost decisions that I should have won. I’ve won decisions. … Been a champion. I’ve lost the belt. There’s not much in this game that I haven’t seen over the last 18 years, I’ll tell you that.
The loss, a first-round finish that gave Pinedo six points in the PFL season standings, cost Loughnane a chance to repeat a million-dollar year in the cage as he missed out on the semifinals.
But Loughnane (27-5, 16 finishes), who begins his trek back to the pinnacle of PFL on Friday in Chicago against Pedro Carvalho, appreciated that the timing of the setback offered him nearly a year to recover.
“It’s been 10 months since my last fight. I was fighting every six to eight weeks,” Loughnane said. “So for me, I took my time, I let my brain heal, I let my body heal, and now, I’m fully here, fully back, fully ready to win another belt.”
To make that happen, he’ll have to navigate what he said is the PFL featherweight division’s “strongest” field yet in the wake of the organization’s acquisition of rival promotion Bellator last November — although he couched that last year’s 10-man roster “was also very strong.”
Indeed, the influx of top-30 talents Timur Valiev and Adam Borics, as well as UFC veterans Enrique Barzola, Brett Johns and Kai Kamaka III as part of the Bellator sale makes this season’s 145-pound division as fascinating as ever.
Loughnane’s first opponent, Carvalho (13-8, eight finishes), once challenged for the Bellator featherweight title, but he has lost five of his last seven, including the failed championship bid against Patricio “Pitbull” Freire.
By and large, Carvalho has faced almost exclusively some of the best featherweights outside of the UFC roster the past four years — ditto for this spot against Loughnane — and the 34-year-old Manchester native respects his first foe of 2024 for the degree of difficulty.
“He’s only ever lost to elite competition, like myself, the only losses to [Aaron] Pico and Pitbull and all the best guys,” Loughnane says. “… He comes from a great coach, John Kavanagh, who I know very well. So I know he’s going to come with a solid game plan. But I’m ready. I’m ready for whatever.”
All of Loughnane’s attention is focused on this season debut, as he perished the thought of looking ahead to who could be standing in front of him in the fall with the 2024 championship up for grabs.
Call it a lesson learned from 2023, the year he experienced a violent separation from consciousness for the first time.
“I think that was my mistake last year, looking over people, looking past people and just counting the money,” Loughnane said. “This year, all I can see is Pedro on April 19, and I will not be making that mistake over this year. He’s a very serious threat. I’ve trained diligently, and I’m excited to put on a show.”