Bubba Jenkins and the PFL Pressure Cooker

Bubba Jenkins recognizes the predicament in which he finds himself inside the Professional Fighters League, as he prepares to face Gabriel Braga in a featured PFL 6 featherweight attraction this Friday at the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Anything less than a win by submission or knockout likely marks the end of his latest postseason push.

“The focus is to get the finish that I need to move on to the playoffs,” Jenkins told Sherdog.com. “There’s no strategy involved with this at all. We’ve got to go get a finish, and we’ve got to get it early.”

Braga could prove to be a problematic foil. The 26-year-old Tropa Thai product carries a 15-1 record into the cage, having reached the 2023 PFL featherweight final in November. Braga opened the regular season with a bang on April 19, as he punched out former Legacy Fighting Alliance champion Justin Gonzalez in the first round of their PFL 3 pairing.

“Braga is on all the platforms, and we’ve seen him for years,” Jenkins said. “I’ve known his father. He’s young and scrappy with tons of heart. He hasn’t submitted anyone, so I don't really think he’s looking for the grappling side of things, and I think that’s where the weakness lies. I’m either going to go try and knock him out or submit him, but I’m going to try to do it early. I’ve got to do it. It’s not really me trying to talk trash or downgrade his skills. I believe he’s one of the best fighters in the PFL, but the situation has it where I have to submit him, where I have to knock him out and I have to do it early, so that’s what I’m claiming I will do.

“I never worry about my opponent,” he added. “I always worry about myself, and at the end of the day, it’s really about continuing to be the mixed martial artist. So long as we continue to do that, we’ll continue to stay great.”

A two-time NCAA All-American wrestler who won a national title at Arizona State University in 2011, Jenkins has pieced together a successful run in mixed martial arts outside the auspices of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in the decade-plus since. Even so, he remains true to his roots.

“I always want someone on the flight,” Jenkins said. “I always want to put them on a suplex, put them on that Jenkins Airways, but I’ve developed into the sport. I’ve loved my evolution in the sport of mixed martial arts. I feel like I’m resilient. I feel like I’ve been here for a long time. I don’t know if there’s a hall of fame with mixed martial arts, other than the fact that you’ve got to go towards that UFC thing. There are some people in the sport that have been in the game and that are legends of mixed martial arts that will never get crowned or never get recognized because they didn’t go the UFC route. It’s a beautiful thing to understand that even though a lot of people don’t know or see my story, I know within the halls of the greats that I recognize, they recognize me. I’m pretty official. I’m pretty stamped in that way.”

Jenkins enters his latest assignment on the heels of back-to-back losses to Jesus Pinedo and Kai Kamaka III. He still feels the weight of expectation as he heads into what figures to be the latter stages of his career. The bout with Braga will be his 30th.

“It’s always pressure,” Jenkins said. “The fact that we show up and we get in front of people and we say that we’re going to do these dangerous things to these good fighters, in front of you guys and for you guys, it’s always added pressure. Anytime you say, ‘I’m going to beat this guy,’ then that guy shows up and there’s the people around, there’s going to be added pressure. The fact that we say we’re going to knock people out or submit them and then they’re there with their families to hear these things, it’s always going to be that added pressure.”