Karate Combat president Asim Zaidi isn’t sure that Donn Davis is the right person to be a spokesperson for the PFL, specifically when it comes to talking about combat sports. Davis is the founder, chairman and co-owner of the promotion and that means that he tends to face criticism when complaints are raised regarding the PFL.
The entrepreneur tends to be at the center of this more than the PFL’s other leading men in Peter Murray and Ray Sefo because he’s the most vocal especially when it comes to their business decisions which has been a big talking point following the recent departures and issues regarding some of the Bellator fighters on the roster. Zaidi, who is also known as “President Awesome”, takes a very different approach when he’s talking about his promotion.
As a jiu-jitsu and judo black belt, Zaidi is also the owner and one of the coaches at the Goat Shed gym in Miami, Florida. This gives him the viewpoint that a combat sports promotion should be headed up by someone who has first-hand experience of what it is like to be an active participant in the sport itself.
He spoke about this in a recent interview with MMA Junkie where he voiced his opinions without wanting to personally criticize Davis.
“Honestly, I hate saying this because he seems like a nice guy – I would love to sit with him and just understand,” Zaidi told MMA Junkie. “Maybe I’m misunderstanding him. I don’t think he understands anything about combat sports. And I don’t think that – if you’re not in this sh*t, if you can’t roll on the mats with me, I don’t think you should be part of it, you know what I mean?
“He’s never trained martial arts in his life. I’m saying this ignorantly, I don’t know if he has, but there’s no way, right? Can the guy throw up a triangle? How is he going to understand what it’s like for fighters to do certain things, or when Patricio ‘Pitbull’ hasn’t fought in so long and is begging for a fight in the prime years of his career? He doesn’t understand that.”
Zaidi continued, making the case that Davis may well be a valuable asset to the promotion but he believes that there are others who could be a more effective leading man.
“He comes from a finance background, which is wonderful, but stay in the background then and put Ray Sefo in front,” Zaidi said. “Imagine this for a moment: Imagine if Ray Sefo was president? It would be really respectable. It would be unbelievable. How can you say anything bad about Ray Sefo?
“Put Donn Davis in the background, he handles whatever back there. He’s a finance guy. Great. But hearing him talk about fighters and fighting, it doesn’t even sound like he watches fights. So, I’m not impressed by him. I’m not impressed by what he says. Dana White is an absolute G with everything he says, and I truly agree with him: I don’t think PFL has it.”
