WILL FLEURY enters the Professional Fighters League season with the $1million cash prize on his mind – just one year after being urged to retire.
Fleury is one of the eight light-heavyweight contenders competing for the cash prize and title belt.
The Irishman – who trains in the same gym as Conor McGregor – was set for a move to the UFC until the PFL came knocking.
Fleury, 34, told SunSport: “I got this offer and I thought, well this is a chance to really change your life financially.
PFL is the sport’s only seasonal format, consisting of qualifying and knockout stages.
Points are earned per method of victory in the opening two bouts with the top four in each weight progressing into the semi-finals.
From there, it is victory-or-go-home culminating in a winner-take-all finale fight where a title belt and $1m cash prize lays in wait.
Fleury has been a staple in Irish MMA over the years, fighting all across Europe after a successful 7-0 amateur career.
But it has been a hard road for the former middleweight, who was working as a bouncer up until he got a Bellator deal in 2019.
Fleury revealed: “I had worked in London full-time while I was an amateur.
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“At that point, I was making very, very little money and I went back to working on the doors.
“But I saved up enough to quit my job but about a year and a half as a pro I won all those fights but still couldn’t make championship money.
“I was teaching classes, working in the gym, that sort of thing. But then I went back to working on the door six nights a week, working security.
“I did that for about a year, even after I got my Bellator contract but after I started making legit money with Bellator, thankfully I was able to stop doing that work.”
Fleury fought his way up to a title shot in Abu Dhabi under the UAE Warriors promotion.
But after sustaining a brutal ankle injury, he was advised to retire in order to prevent further damage.
Although Fleury defiantly decided to fight on and has not looked back since.
He said: “I was told I might not be able to manage this and that I wouldn’t be able to sustain a career in this and that it could plague me forever.
“Thankfully, it turned out not to be as serious as they thought.”
Fleury beat Anthony Salamone, 27, last August in his PFL debut and earned a full contract for the season after.
He will open his 2023 account on Saturday in Las Vegas against Pole Krzysztof Jotko, 33.
Fleury knows he is four fights away from setting up his future and avoiding a return to working life.
He said: “I love living the way I do. For as long as I can keep training and doing this, I will do.
“Very little in my day-to-day life will change but I’d buy a house, I’ll have my own property and hopefully a little bit of money put away for once I finish up.
“That’s the biggest thing, I love doing this. I love living the way I live right now, but I’m 34-years-old just gone and if this ends right now, I have to go back to doing something I really don’t want to do to sustain myself for the rest of my life.
“If I win this $1million, that’s not the case anymore. I can choose what I want to do with my life. So for me, it’s freedom.
“It’s freedom of what I’m going to do afterwards, it’s freedom of where I want to live, I’ll have options in life.”
