Chris Wade seems not impressed by his upcoming opponent on many fronts.

Wade takes on Brendan Loughnane in the semifinals of the 2022 PFL featherweight playoffs on Saturday in London. And ahead of their co-main event bout, Wade (22-7) is confident he’s the toughest foe Loughnane has ever faced by a long shot.

“In two years, you haven’t fought Palmer, you haven’t fought Bubba, you haven’t fought me. How did you pull that off, Brendan?,” Wade said on Tuesday’s media call. “You fought Tyler Diamond. That was the wrestler?”

Not only is Wade skeptical of Loughnane’s strength of schedule, but he’s also wondering why PFL has been promoting him. Wade doesn’t find the Englishman to be much of a draw.

“First of all, when they signed him, I didn’t even know who he was,”
Wade said. “He said something like when he first got there about me not being nice or cordial. I don’t know. We sign a lot of people in this weight, in other weights. I don’t know everybody, nor do I care. So it was just indifference to whoever is in my way.

“But since he’s been here, they’re treating it like this Conor McGregor situation, and it’s not. I saw the live look-in at a bar for his last fight. There were four people there. If you look at the look-ins for my fights, at my local town over here, it’s 100 people sitting at the place.

“So I think they’re just sadly mistaken about what his draw power is. I don’t know if it’s based out of his Instagram following or what. It makes no sense to me.”

Loughnane didn’t stay quiet during the call as he fired back at Wade’s claims questioning his wins inside the PFL.

“After, Sheymon Moraes went on a three-fight wining streak after losing to me,” Loughnane said. “Tyler Diamond has only one loss to a top-10 UFC fighter in Bryce Mitchell. So to call them two not good opponents, it’s a bit stupid. Ryoji Kudo is in the semifinals and (for my last fight) I had a last minute pullout. So what is this guy talking about? He’s talking absolute rubbish.”