Standing on a platform in the Denny Sanford Premier Center under the bright lights of the Professional Fighters League media day, Logan Storley felt at home.
And why wouldn’t he?
The South Dakota native was back in his home state in the same building where he won three of his six high school state wrestling championships for Webster High School. He was in the same building where he made his professional debut, fought in the Legacy Fighting Alliance, the Resurrection Fighting Alliance, and where he’s had multiple Bellator wins.
“I always want to put on for the state of South Dakota,” Storley said during media day Wednesday. “I don't think there's a better place in the world than being back home … For me, it's always to go out there and put on a great performance, represent the state in a great way. And that's my plan for Friday night.”
Storley will fight Luca Poclit in the co-main event on Friday night when the PFL regular season comes to the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls. Amid flooding throughout the Midwest, the hometown fighter hopes his performance can help take the state's mind off what they’ve lost, even if it’s just for a couple of hours.
Storley saw the impact of the flooding all over the news, how people in his home state had lost everything overnight. Once he got to Sioux Falls, he visited Falls Park to see some of the damage firsthand.
“We put a lot of pressure on competing, this and that, and it's like, 'OK, well in the grand scheme of what some of these people are going through, it's not much,'” Storley said. “And so obviously, I wish everyone the best and hope things turn out as good as they can for them.”
The former Interim Bellator welterweight world champion is looking forward to drawing on the energy of his home state and seeing his friends and family.
He'll need it for Friday's fight against Poclit, who has a 10-1 record and was a last-minute replacement for Storley’s original opponent, Laureano Staropoli. Storley opened his two-fight regular season with a loss against Shamil Musaev, which has left him on the outside of the playoff picture looking in.
The PFL regular season format, which has been in effect since 2018, features fighters from around the world competing in a regular season, playoffs and championship with each champion of the six divisions earning $1 million.
A win nets them three points, a draw gets one point, and a loss is zero. A first-round stoppage is an additional three points, a second-round stoppage is an additional two points, and a third-round stoppage is one bonus point.
In his debut season in the PFL, Storley currently sits three points out of the playoffs making Friday a pivotal moment in his potential run to the PFL welterweight title and $1 million. Storley has been in plenty of big fights before against some of the best in the world and Friday will be no different.
“There's a lot of really good guys, and so if you come out on top of this, I think you can truly say you fought some of the best guys in the world,” Storley said. “That's why I came over here to PFL.”
Jonathan Fernandez covers high school and college sports for the Argus Leader. Contact him at jfernandez1@argusleader.com . Follow him on Twitter at @JFERN31
This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: South Dakota native Logan Storley hopes to provide a distraction from Midwest flooding with PFL fight
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