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Joe Cullen wins Players Championship 27, bringing huge momentum into 2025 World Series of Darts Finals

2025 has been a rough year for Joe Cullen.

The one positive for Cullen in 2025 was a Players Championship title earlier this year. Otherwise, he's done very little in majors and on the Pro Tour to this point.

With Cullen dropping down the rankings and needing to find something soon to qualify for tournaments like the World Grand Prix, he needed a strong effort today.

A run to the quarterfinal or semifinal round would likely have been a success, but Cullen decided to take it a step further.

Joe Cullen defeats Gerywn Price in thrilling final at PC 27

The Cullen we saw today is a player who hasn't been on the stage in quite some time.

He fought through every game, reaching the final to square off with Gerwyn Price, who won PC 26 on Tuesday.

MORE: 2025 PDC World Series of Darts Finals qualifiers announced

To get here, he started with a 6-3 win over Brendan Dolan, with an average of 91.36.

In the second round, his average increased to 94.57, which was enough to take down Adam Hunt.

A tough opponent in Cameron Menzies was next up in the third round for Cullen, but he was able to advance with a 6-4 win over the Scottish #3, averaging 96.30.

Cullen continued to increase his scoring as the rounds progressed, averaging 98.76 in a 6-4 win over Robert Grundy in the final 16.

To this point, Cullen picked up a few thousand pounds, which Joe had to be happy with, but he wanted more and wasn't satisfied just yet.

MORE: 2025 World Series of Darts Finals: Draw, schedule, prize money and format explained

He defeated James Hurrell in the quarterfinal, with another steady average of 99.19.

Scott Williams was playing some great darts on Wednesday, but Cullen dismantled him in a 7-1 semifinal defeat, averaging 100.63.

Getting to the final felt like a victory in itself, but Cullen could give himself a lot of breathing room if he could win the final, which would add another five thousand pounds to his ranking money.

It wasn't easy, but Cullen was able to defeat yesterday's PC winner, beating Price 8-7 in a thrilling final.

Joe went from not being in a provisional qualifying spot for next month's World Grand Prix to now being in the 11th spot out of the 16 spots given out to players via the Pro Tour OoM.

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Cullen is also the current ninth seed in the Player Championship Finals race.

On the Main OoM, Cullen has moved up a few spots and is now the world number 26.

Qualifying for events and changing ranking positioning is important for Cullen, but this was a huge title and confidence booster for Joe ahead of several upcoming tournaments, including the World Series of Darts Finals, which takes place this upcoming weekend.

It's an unranked event, but maybe this can be Joe's first breakthrough performance in a non-Pro Tour event in 2025.