PFL MENA Season 3 Tourney to Kick Off in Saudi Arabia on May 8

The Persian Gulf will once again be the focus of a $100K
Professional Fighters League tournament in a few months.

Per a press release received on Thursday, the PFL will be
commencing its next and third season of the PFL MENA spinoff league
come May 8. The first of four events held in the Middle East/North
Africa regions will be staged at the Dharan Expo in Khobar, Saudi
Arabia, and it will receive the title of “Rise of the Gulf.” While
last year included four brackets for tourneys in the welterweight,
lightweight, featherweight and bantamweight divisions, the company
scales it back to three for this go-round. In lieu of 135-pounders
will be what the promotion is calling “a slate of high-profile
showcase bouts featuring the region’s fastest-rising stars.”

The tournament will begin one day before last year’s, when May 9
served as the kickoff date for the grand prix that also opened in
Saudi Arabia. Spanning that date to Dec. 5, four athletes picked up
$100K checks and a chance to progress to the organization’s Global
league. Those four men were Mohammad
Alaqraa, Salah
Eddine Hamli, Islam Reda
and Nawras
Abzakh; the latter three all prevailed by stoppage to win it
all in their division. Of those four, Hamli will be headlining the
first installment of the 2026 tournament series, against an
opponent yet to be announced.

Fresh Faces, Furious Fights

In addition to the aforementioned Hamli, the organization announced
that two other names would be slated for the billing, also against
currently unknown adversaries. Local competitor and 2023 Saudi
Games victor Ahmed
Albrahim will be making his professional debut on the card. The
man who goes by the name of “Saudi Hulk” is coming off a win in the
final 2025 MENA show when he punched out fellow amateur Mohamed
Nabil at 170 pounds. The PFL has also retained the services of Brave Combat Federation staple Hamza
Kooheji, who was with the Brave FC organization since their
very first event in 2016. The Bahraini featherweight leaves that
league behind posting a record of 9-3 under its banner, with his
last appearance at Brave’s 100th show last November.

Finally, PFL revealed on a separate Instagram post
that 2025 featherweight finalist Yanis
Ghemmouri is returning for another crack at the tourney title
and a hefty chunk of change. Like the other three athletes
mentioned before, Ghemmouri’s upcoming foe has not yet been
determined. “The Desert Warrior” departed the confines of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship after two
crushing losses in 2023 and 2024, where he moved to join the MENA
bracket. He won his semifinal match against Izzeddine
Al Derbani, as his previous two pairings with Al Derbani and
Assem
Ghanem slotted him directly into the second-to-last stage of
the tournament. He was ultimately staved off by the aforementioned
Reda.