Louis Taylor Embracing Uncertainty Ahead of Professional Fighters League Debut

The last time the mixed martial arts world saw Louis Taylor inside the cage, he lost a spirited battle with David Branch for the World Series of Fighting middleweight title last December. “Put the Guns Down” has been anxious to get back into the realm of combat in an effort to land another crack at a world title.

Unfortunately, the Chicago native’s path back to action has been slow and while he knows he’ll continue fighting, he doesn’t know what his future holds. Taylor is a former WSOF fighter among many who are now fighting for the new Professional Fighters League and while the promotion has made bold claims about its future plans, Taylor is unsure.

“I honestly have no idea what’s going on with me and them,” Taylor told Sherdog.com in a recent interview. “I was in the WSOF and last year they said they weren’t going anywhere, but then a few months later they sold and became the Professional Fighters League. So, no, I honestly have no idea what to expect.”

To interpret his words as sour or frustrated wouldn’t be fair, however. He revealed that he loved fighting under the WSOF umbrella and is pumped for what the Professional Fighters League has in store for 2018, with its million-dollar purse for each weight class at the end of the grand prix-style season.

“I love what they have out on paper,” he said. “I think if they can pull this all off, it’ll be amazing and it’s something this sport needs. I absolutely love the plan. But they haven’t told me anything. The only things I know about their future is what I’ve read in the media. I’m not sure where I fit in their plan, when I’d be fighting, how much money I’d be making... None of that. So, yeah, it’s frustrating because I am excited for this new venture, but I literally don’t know anything.”

When pressed whether he thinks the promotion’s brass is keeping him in the dark on purpose, he scoffed.

“Oh no, man,” he laughed. “I don’t think that at all. I think these guys are still trying to figure everything out and their hearts are in the right place. I don’t think any of it’s on purpose, but as a fighter who likes to plan things out, I would like to know what is going on.”

If that wasn’t frustrating enough, Taylor has had to prepare for multiple opponents ahead of his bout on Saturday in Everett, Wash. To make matters worse, the man he’ll be locking horns with is a guy that he literally won’t have any time to prepare for at all.

“I was originally supposed to fight Bruno Santos and that is exactly the type of fighter I want to fight,” he said. “I am coming off the loss to Branch and Santos is perfect: he’s got a good name and he’s tough. He’s one of the best in my weight class. I couldn’t wait to test myself against him and see where I stand. But then they (PFL) switched him to fight someone else. I had prepared my whole camp around him and to have that happen, it’s disappointing.

“So then I was supposed to fight Tyler Vogel and I began preparing for him, but now he can’t fight,” he added. “He had licensing issues or something. They (PFL officials) just told me about that and now I am fighting Zach Conn. I’m glad that I’m still fighting on the card but I don’t know anything about this guy. Literally nothing, It’s really frustrating.”

Taylor said that he was not going to let the last-minute opponent switches hinder his performance, though. His goal remains to get back into title contention and prove to the PFL what he’s made of and show how important he can be to the fledgling promotion.

“My plan has always been to go out there and dominate my opponent,” he said. “I prepared to look great against Santos and prove to the PFL my value. It’s hard to prepare for a guy like Conn because I don’t know anything about him. I know that smashing a guy like him probably won’t mean much, but that doesn’t change what my original approach is, and that’s to dominate in impressive fashion.”