CHICAGO – It’s been a long time coming, but Don Madge finally got back in the cage Friday – and got a crucial result, too.

Madge (11-4-1) submitted gunslinger Brennan Ward (17-8) just 62 seconds into a firefight to open the PFL’s 2024 welterweight season. The stoppage got Madge 6 points in the standings and a spot atop the leaderboard.

Madge had been on the shelf for two years, ever since a loss to Raush Manfio to open the 2022 season. Still, despite his quick win, Madge didn’t seem ready to rest on his laurels.

“(I feel) incomplete,” Madge told MMA Junkie and other reporters backstage after his fight at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. “I’ve still got the rest of the season to go. It was a good win, but now I’m just thinking about the next leg of competition.”

Madge, from South Africa, signed with the UFC after he won the welterweight title for EFC in his home country. It took a while to get to his promotional debut, but he went 2-0 in the UFC before he eventually signed with the PFL after a string of missed fights due to visa issues and injuries.

He said he expected Ward to come out swinging for the fences, which he did.

“I think realistically, he was trying to intimidate me or try to get into my head,” Madge said. “I expected him to try to take me down. I knew he was going to try to put forward pressure with me and try to get a quick knockout. But I knew as soon as he figured that he couldn’t do that, he was going to try to take me down. I was prepared to grapple with him 15 minutes if we had to.”

But Madge may actually have been hoping he could put Ward away with his hands instead of the rear-naked choke he tapped to. That came after some leather got thrown around, for sure. But Madge said his move to welterweight has made him feel more powerful.

“That was one of the major decisions for me moving up to welterweight is that for the last four fights, fighting at lightweight, the weight cuts got harder and harder and harder and the punches felt harder and harder and harder,” he said. “I felt like I lost a lot of power in my fight. I’d hit guys and they wouldn’t move. But tonight I hit him, he started wobbling, his eyes would skew – so it was the best decision in hindsight.”

Madge’s 6 points currently carry more heft than the 6 Murad Ramazanov has because Madge’s finish was faster. That might wind up paying dividends later, but it will depend on how the four-man playoffs shake out.

And for that, Madge seems to think it might not matter.

“I think there’s a lot of tough competition. I think this is like one of the most stacked welterweight divisions that there have been (in the PFL),” Madge said. “But I feel like the stars are aligning for me. It’s been a rough two years, and I feel like the stars are aligning. I think this could be my year.”

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for PFL 2024, Week 3.