This past weekend was a rare off week for the UFC, but fortunately, the rest of the combat sports world did its part to fill the void, with both PFL and BKFC hosting events, and even the new kid on the block, Global Fight League, got in on the fun with their promotional “draft” on Friday. So, let’s talk about a surprisingly eventful weekend in the world of fist-fighting.

OK, What is the deal with the GFL?

“What is a maximum non-zero number of events you think GFL will run?”

Oh, GFL. Where do I begin?

On Friday, the GFL held it’s inaugural “draft,” with the six teams each selecting 20 fighters to participate in the upcoming season. Except that is not at all what happened. We were promised a draft and what we got a shambolic disaster of nearly unparalleled proportions.

First off, this was not a draft. The “first overall pick” was Tyron Woodley, to the Dubai team and there is not a sane person in the world who would draft Woodley first overall. He’s 42 years old and has lost six fights in a row! That immediately tipped the hand that this wasn’t a real draft and Sage Northcutt going second removed all doubt. These six teams were clearly established beforehand and the draft and this was simply a marketing gimmick. That immediately left a bad taste in my mouth.

On top of that, this was one of the most shoddily produced things I’ve ever seen. The “draft” only lasted four rounds before they just revealed the full teams, and even then they constantly screwed things up. Yoel Romero was “drafted” in the third round, but Darren Owen’s pre-recorded message left that out, so Mike Goldberg mentioned it the viewers, except five minutes later they finally played a video package of Jon Jones announcing the Romero pick! That is inconceivably bad production, and it wasn’t the only instance. After they abandoned the fake draft entirely, they still ran a clip of Christian McCaffrey announcing a pick from the 12th round, because why not?

All of it was made worse by bringing out the ghosts of MMA past to serve as the panel for this farce. It’s not 2010 so why is your A-Team Robin Black, Mike Goldberg, and Brendan Schaub? Schaub repeatedly called guys like Kevin Lee and Sage Northcutt “prospects,” Black pretended Gegard Mousasi was still relevant, and Goldberg waxed poetic about the UFC and all these old-ass fighters he knows. Who was this for?!

And of course there’s the issues with the fighters themselves. The average fighter age is nearly 36 years old and a lot of these people frankly shouldn’t be fighting anymore. Heck, a good portion of the fighters are/were retired before this came along. That does not exactly breed confidence.

But the worst part of all of this was what happened after. There have been plenty of rumors about GFL signing fighters who were already under contract or didn’t agree to sign, but following the “draft” a lot more specific instances came to light. Rashad Evans was drafted by Los Angeles and then immediately denied he was participating, leading to GFL removing him from its graphics.

There is plenty more I could criticize about the GFL draft, but if I did so this would be a 10,000-word mailbag, and no one wants that. Suffice it to say, Friday night removed all doubt from me that the GFL is not a serious organization and I will frankly be surprised if they hold any events whatsoever. And if they do, I strongly encourage every fighter to get paid up front.

One more GFL thing

“When you think of the future of fighting, 45 yr old Uriah Faber is the first thing that comes to mind right? What does success look like for The GFL (Geriatric Fight League)?”

I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about GFL during the travesty of a launch that was the GFL draft and honestly, I still don’t know what this is. When Darren Owen first announced it I thought, “OK, they’re remaking the IFL, which won’t work but that’s a thing that happens in MMA promotion all the time.” Now, I simply do not believe that to be true.

I don’t know what the GFL is, but it’s not a real fight promotion. So I came up with a few alternatives that make more sense to me than this being an MMA promotion with serious aspirations for success, and ordered them from most to least likely, in my opinion (for the sake of being optimistic, I’m choosing to view whatever the PFL is as an honest business instead of a grift but perhaps I’m being too optimistic).

1. This is not an actual fight promotion, but an elaborate marketing scheme for an MMA video game. Back before EA made the UFC games, there was a generic MMA game, and this is trying to do something similar, perhaps in a mobile version.
2. This is not an actual fight promotion, but an elaborate marketing scheme for a cryptocurrency or NFT collection.
3. This is an elaborate scientific experiment to determine just how capable AI currently is at project management. Instead of having a CEO make decisions, Owen just types stuff into ChatGPT and goes with what it says. That’s how you get the commentary booth for the draft.
4. Owen believes the most important part of fight promotion is having a theme song, and once he got that done, he figured the rest would just fall into place.
5. This is a false flag operation from Donn Davis and the PFL to make their decisions and promotion look good in comparison.

So, to answer the question, in scenarios 1-4, success is not losing millions of dollars and ending up in jail for failure to pay debts. For scenario 5, this is already a massive triumph.

Paul Hughes and the Fight of the Year

“How do you think Paul Hughes would fare in the UFC?”

Really, really well.

In case you missed it, over in PFL on Saturday, Paul Hughes and Usman Nurmagomedov put on the Fight of the Year thus far, with Usman eking out a majority decision win that ruffled a lot of feathers. I don’t think the decision qualifies as a robbery (I scored it a draw with the point deduction in Round 3) but it is one of those decisions where Nurmagomedov may have won the MMA bout but Hughes won the fight. He is certainly the one people were talking about in the aftermath, in part because of his awesome Robbie Lawler-esque picture staring down Nurmagomedov.

Hughes was a big free agent signing last year when PFL landed him and he had a bit of a breakout with his win over A.J. McKee, but this was truly the Irishman’s coming out party. Nurmagomedov is one of the 10 best lightweights on Earth at the moment and Hughes gave him all he could handle and arguably won the fight. He showed incredible takedown defense and scrambling ability, terrific cardio and durability, and a mean streak which all the best fighters have. This is a young man who was born to scrap and he just proved he can against one of the best in his division.

I see no reason to think Hughes wouldn’t have a ton of success if he suddenly jumped into the deep end of the UFC’s lightweight division tomorrow (and same for Nurmagomedov). Lightweight is the best and deepest division in the sport but the names at the top of it are all on their very last legs, and Hughes would be in prime position to jump in and make noise right away.

The problem at lightweight is always, can you even get the opportunity? To get a shot at the top 15, lightweights have to put together incredibly impressive runs, and while I like Hughes’s chances against a lot of 155ers, it’s by no means a guarantee. Anyone in the top 30 can beat anyone else in the top 30. But for Hughes, with his name already ringing out, he might get an immediate shot at a top name and it’s 50/50 or better he can get the win and then be a made man. I can’t wait to see it in a few years.

PFL

“Outside of booking a rematch of the main event in Belfast what can pfl do to capitalize on what feels like legit momentum and excitement?”

I did a post-fight show for this event and said that not only was Nurmagomedov vs. Hughes the Fight of the Year, it was also the greatest fight in PFL history. I stand by that. By my estimation, this is the single biggest thing PFL has ever done and it’s critical they build off of it.

Speaking frankly, PFL does not draw a ton of interest. Even the championships, where $1 million checks are handed out, frequently go over like a lead balloon. This was different. I don’t know if it was just this particular matchup and the build to it, but people cared about PFL in a way that I haven’t seen since the night Kayla Harrison lost. Even before the main event, people were interested, and were tuning in, and then when they did, they got to see the best fight of the year, with all the drama that ensued. It would be a stretch to say this is the PFL’s Ultimate Fighter Finale moment, but I don’t know, maybe it could be.

The thing is, PFL needs to be able to build off this. There have been various moments where PFL gained some sort of momentum and then followed it up with garbo heavyweight fights in the season format. Don’t do that. Please. I’m begging.

If Donn Davis calls me up and says, “Hey, Jed, you’re the PFL Minister of Fun. How can we make the most out of this good energy?” I’m telling him two things. First, book the rematch for Belfast. Book it now. Get the deal done for late Spring or early Summer, and give this a full court promotional press. I’m talking world tour, late night TV shows, the works. You probably can’t get Usman on Jimmy Fallon, but maybe you can get Paul Hughes. Make sure people know we’re doing this again, in Belfast, and don’t let them forget how great the fight was. That’s job No. 1.

Job No. 2 is booking your next event. Right now the next thing I see on the PFL docket is the start of its tournament series in April. Unacceptable. There are two UFC APEX events in March. Dakota Ditcheva needs to be fighting somebody, anybody on one of those dates, preferably in England.

The simple fact is that PFL probably can’t succeed anyway. The UFC has astonishing, overwhelming monopsony power in the MMA marketplace. But this could be a real spark for PFL to actually make some noise in a meaningful way. I hope they don’t fumble it because we need other legitimate MMA organizations for fighters to have as options.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who sent in tweets (Xs?)! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck because you can send your tweets to me, @JedKMeshew, and I will answer my favorite ones! It doesn’t matter if they’re topical or insane, just so long as they are good. Thanks again, and see y’all next week.