Fight to Win Pro 62 -- Big time event

[trustdoesntrust]

I went to this last night in Oakland; large expo hall standing room only almost to the door, with sold-out VIP tables three deep encircling the ring. Just crazy how many people were there to watch a professional grappling event, all paying not-cheap money for tickets, parking, concessions, etc. Tons of excitement overall, and the crowd was dead silent Pride-style for the main and comain event. The FTW atmosphere and ruleset really makes competitors battle in ways that you dont see in IBJJF or EBI. I don't know what this event is like in other cities, but hard not to see the future as being very bright for our sport.

 

[007]

I enjoyed the F2W in Boston.

 

[Balto]

They put on some really cool events.

The biggest hurdle I see coming in the future is athletic commissions getting involved. They usually have jurisdiction over "prizefighting", and this fits the bill pretty well from the events I've been to.

The fact that it's grappling only really isn't enough to stay away from the commissions. About ten years ago my state's commission shut down some NAGAs and other grappling tournaments briefly. There was a brief standoff that eventually got resolved when the tournament promoters convinced the commission that the prizes being advertised were nominal -- just medals and trinkets. This grouped it as an amateur grappling event similar to a wrestling tournament and the commission ended up accepting this.

FTW is a totally different animal that is 100% cash prize matches so I don't see this argument working. From the two I have attended personally, the MMA guys I was with were in agreement that the commission must not realize what this because no way they would not step in otherwise. It's based on the local pro MMA show model with fighters expected to sell a quota of tickets in addition to their cash prize. It's very similar.

Some of the regulations would probably help too. I saw one event online that had a literal bloodbath match with one guy suffering a cut early on. It was a cool display of heart to finish it out anyway and the fans loved it, but it's a little darker when you realize that 1) there is no proper fight doctor checking the injuries when they're off to the side and 2) neither fighter had any kind of medical to be sure they were clear of bloodborne pathogens. It looked like the one guy bled about a pint of blood into the other guy's face, and it would really suck to get hepatitis that way.

Also just the medical coverage in general needed for regulated events I think is needed. One of my guys I was coaching took a couple bad slams during his match. Slams are legal and he was fine, but if he wasn't, what's the medical responsibility then? If it's one of our local MMA promotions, I know exactly how that works out because medical coverage has to be in place for the fighters to get sanctioned. Here I don't think there was anything in place so if anybody did suffer a serious injury, I have no idea how that would work out.

 

[kenetics]

I've competed on this show multiple times. I see that they are having to many shows which waters down the promotions of the fighters and event. It took them the week of to have any promotion of the event and fighters. They have a show every week now.

Some of the competitors are not very good to say the least but are on a pro card?

Other fight2win copy cats are popping up now and will only cut into their revenue.

 

[JustTheTip]

I went to this last night in Oakland; large expo hall standing room only almost to the door, with sold-out VIP tables three deep encircling the ring. Just crazy how many people were there to watch a professional grappling event, all paying not-cheap money for tickets, parking, concessions, etc. Tons of excitement overall, and the crowd was dead silent Pride-style for the main and comain event. The FTW atmosphere and ruleset really makes competitors battle in ways that you dont see in IBJJF or EBI. I don't know what this event is like in other cities, but hard not to see the future as being very bright for our sport.

I'm curious, where do you train? I was there last night as well.