Nobody’s Steppingstone

Louis Taylor can see the finish line. The Professional Fighters League middleweight finalist and Chicago native has dealt with impediments to success throughout his life. The PFL playoffs were no different, and he expects nothing less on New Year’s Eve, when he faces Abusupiyan Magomedov with $1 million on the line inside the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

“Being a part of the middleweight finals, that was definitely my goal,” Taylor told Sherdog.com, “so I’m where I want to be right now.”

While Taylor fought his way to the final, the last leg of the journey was not a smooth ride. “Handgunz” faced off with Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran John Howard in the semifinals at PFL 10 in October. In the second round of their encounter, they grappled on the mat and Taylor attempted a knee strike to Howard’s body. The knee missed the mark and struck “Doomsday” in the head. Controversy ensued. Accidental illegal blows are not uncommon in MMA, and Taylor did not feel he landed with enough force to stop the fight.

“You know when you land something hard or if it just grazes, and that was definitely a grazed knee,” he said. “Howard, he’s a legend, he’s a tough guy, so I’m thinking he’s going to milk it for the injury time and then we should move on.”

However, he overheard Howard inform officials he could not continue. Anger festered within him.

“If you’re going to lose, you’re going to lose, but you don’t want to have it taken away from you in that manner,” Taylor said. “It was completely accidental, and it wasn’t even flush.”

The notion that Howard might game the system and use the errant knee to advance to the final did not surprise Taylor. In fact, he admits that if the situation was reversed, he may have taken the same route.

“If I was in his predicament -- I’m down two rounds and it’s not looking good -- it’s a human thing to do,” Taylor said. “I don’t blame him in that sense. If the shoe was on the other foot, I may have played the same card my damn self.”

Even though he believed the writing for a disqualification loss was on the wall, Taylor was not permitted to leave the cage and vent his displeasure in private.

“If I’m going to lose,” he said, “let me get the hell out of here so that I can go in the locker room and respectfully deal with my emotions and not have to deal with it out in public.”

Instead, Taylor was made to wait -- and then wait some more. In fact, the wait lasted 14 minutes, as PFL executives tried to figure out the correct call to make with so much at stake.

“That was a very long time,” Taylor said. “They never stopped the cameras rolling, [and] Ray [Sefo] and Carlos [Silva] told me to sit my ass down [and] calm down. They had to go dig up the scenarios and find the right call. They had to literally bring out the real rulebook. That’s what took so long. They had to go find it.”

After they scoured the rules, made a decision and conveyed it to the referees, judges and commission officials, the result was finally announced. Taylor was declared the winner by technical draw. League representatives viewed the knee strike as accidental and considered the fight a no-contest. However, a winner had to be chosen to move on and, as with the quarterfinals, the man who won the first round was awarded the victory. That distinction belonged to Taylor.



“They could have easily just let it ride,” he said, “but they want to see the right people in the finals, not just somebody who used a clause to get there.”

With his eyes fixed on the $1 million prize and becoming PFL middleweight champion, only one hurdle remains: Magomedov. Taylor views his counterpart’s run during the 2018 season as a pleasant surprise but was not overly impressed with his performance in the playoffs. Magomedov advanced past Gasan Umalatov in a grappling-heavy quarterfinal -- “They pretty much played butt tag for the whole fight,” Taylor said -- and defeated Sadibou Sy in the semis, where he again leaned on his skills as a grappler.

“Sy is definitely not known for his grappling, and Abus had to dig really deep to win that fight,” said Taylor, who wrestled collegiately at Eastern Illinois University. “It wasn’t like his wrestling was super dominant. Me on the other hand, I’m going to put you on the floor and pound your face in.”

Sporting a 22-3-1 record, Magomedov has not tasted defeat in more than three years. Taylor respects his ability to dictate striking range and keep opponents off-balance. However, he expects to counteract those strengths.

“He keeps you watching him, instead of whipping his ass,” Taylor said, “and I’m not going to do that. I’m going to whip his ass. I’m going to hit him, and he hasn’t really been hit like the way I’m planning on hitting him. If I hit him hard enough, he’s going to take a bad shot, and I’ll put him away. I have a hell of a guillotine, so if he shoots, that might be the end of him. He hasn’t really faced anyone like myself.”

Taylor has complete confidence in his ability to get the job done. However, he does not feel as though Professional Fighters League executives had the same belief in him, even though he competed in the World Series of Fighting -- the forerunner to the PFL -- and fought David Branch for its middleweight championship in 2016.

“In a sense, I should be the frontrunner, but for whatever reason, [at the start of the season] the spotlight was on Shamil [Gamzatov],” Taylor said. “They came and shook my hand and told me, ‘I’ve counted you out time and time again.’”

Taylor, 39, hopes the PFL’s newfound faith in him leads to a more lucrative contract in the future. He was not shy about sharing his displeasure with his current deal and how it stacks up with those being used to lure prospective fighters to the roster.

“They’re signing new people to three [or] four times [more] than what I’ve been paid,” he said. “I’ve been on the roster since WSOF. When you’ve got to sit there and watch the new person get built up above you, it sucks. I love PFL. I’m hoping going forward [that] they view me not as just some steppingstone for somebody who they want to keep around.”