GFL inaugural event cancelled, lol
The GFL sounded like a wonderful idea on paper. We have a team system where different cities from around the world field a group of fighters across all weight categories - well not all, but the main ones that people find exciting - and each team has two fighters in each category. Then the game is not just winning individual fights, but also managing who is going to take which fight and who is going to rest etc. It becomes a game of coaching becoming important as the real prize isn't just the championships, but which team can accumulate the most points to win the annual team prize.
I thought it was a great concept.
Well GFL faced a lot of criticism over this league's formation, including putting people on teams that are over 50 years old and concussed so much that their ability to simply talk has been a bit hindered.
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Right out of the gate there were some glaring problems. GFL got us all excited about the "draft" where team managers representing the various cities that were going to have teams talking about who they had their eyes on to draft for their team were hyped up, and then during the 3-hour broadcast that was meant to have the live drafting simply didn't work. There were streaming issues, the material they had planned to air didn't "flow" and then there was the really big problem of the results of the draft leaking before the live draft event even aired - which was meant to be live.
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These fighters were meant to be getting picked live on the day and other team's choices would obviously get kind of screwed up if someone else chose the pick they had planned on but days before the event this image as well as many others leaked online and sure enough, that is how the "live" event panned out. This shows that the draft was all a lie and that the decision about where each fighter was going to go had already been pre-determined. I was a bit suspicious when all the Brazilian fighters Just happened to be drafted by Sao Paulo, and all the Mexican and Central American fighters just happened to be getting drafted by Miami. Also, the European fighters were all being drafted by London. That's one hell of a coincidence that just happens to cut down on travel costs now isn't it?
Well we were supposed to get a 2-day event this month that was going to take place in Los Angeles but at the 11th hour, the event was completely cancelled.
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One of the promoters and managers said that the reason for this happening is one of the partners had failed to contribute financially as they promised they would and the event was not feasible without their participation. So the event was scrapped just about a week before it was meant to happen. They have tentatively changed the opening date for next month but fans or people that were looking forward to it do not have much hope that this is going to happen either.
Already, several of the fighters that were on board and signed, such as Holly Holm, have already moved on to other things, which suggests that they are bailing on the idea of it altogether. Just a few days ago Holly Holm signed with Jake Paul's boxing league, MVP. This doesn't necessarily mean that she wouldn't be able to do both, but since she is training exclusively in boxing for MVP and probably going to be making a ton of money in the process,she might not feel terribly inclined to focus on GLF if it even happens.
Based on how "Mickey Mouse" things have been up to this point, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this simply ends up not happening. Even if the inaugural event does end up taking place in June, it is going to NEED to be absolutely stellar and catch a lot of eyes to even have a chance of success in the long term. UFC doesn't really leave a lot of room for competition and it wouldn't surprise me if they are working behind the scenes to stymie the competition and perhaps that is why one of the business partners dropped out of the financial obligations just a few weeks before the main event was meant to happen.
Time will tell, but thus far basically everything they have tried to do has fallen flat.
What do you think? Would you be interested in seeing Benson Henderson fight against Anthony Pettis and Renan Barao fight Urijah Faber? In theory I think all fight fans would especially at a time when UFC events are rather lackluster. I feel as though this is a golden time for GFL to gain a foothold in the industry.