No wonder Tom Breese had such a disappointing tenure in the PFL.
Back in April, Breese face Rob Wilkinson in the opening round of the PFL’s 2024 light heavyweight season and things could not have gone much worse as Wilkinson demolished him in just 70 seconds. It was a disappointing outcome for the British fighter but perhaps not an unexpected one as Breese recently told Polish Fighters Info that he was actually under the influence on fight night.
“I was on drugs in the fight,” Breese said. “I did magic mushrooms. I was taking drugs all week. That’s honest. [Laughs] It is what it is. It was a rough time.”
While the PFL does test for performance-enhancing drugs via USADA, psilocybin mushrooms are not currently prohibited.
But Breese’s substance use doesn’t stop there. During the interview, Breese also revealed that he struggled with drug use for some time, which blames for his underwhelming performances the past few years.
“For me, obviously I’ve had some ups and downs, but I was always a very disciplined person, and then I started letting some bad habits come into my life,” Breese said. “Smoking, some drugs, stuff like that. And that was he cause of a lot of these issues, to be honest. Now I’m back on the straight and narrow. It’s not really going to be a thing. I’m going to blow through all my competition. I just had some problems with drugs.”
Undefeated in his first nine professional fights, Breese made a name for himself in the UFC but was released from the promotion in 2020 after a fight day withdrawal from a scheduled bout with Antonio Arroyo at UFC Vegas 28. He then competed for Levels Fight League before signing with KSW for three fights. Most recently Breese competed for Levels Fight League again, winning a unanimous decision over Renato Rangel back in October.
And with his PFL career seemingly over for now and his personal life now in a better spot, Breese hopes to return to KSW in the near future.
“I’d like to come back to KSW,” Breese said. “I really enjoyed my time in KSW, and I feel like there’s a lot of good fights there for me. I’d love to fight Pawel [Pawlak] again. I’d really like that fight.”
