When the Global Fight League was first announced back in 2024, there was plenty of skepticism attached the promotion largely due to significant number of prominent fighters signed to contracts not to mention a nearly identical concept being announced three years earlier that never got off the ground.
Back in 2021, former World Series of Fighting executive Darren Owen announced plans to launch a team-based format called the WFL. Time passed, and the promotion never held a single event, but Owen returned in 2024 with an eerily similar plan for the GFL, except this time, a slew of fighters were signed to contracts, including numerous ex-UFC champions such as Tyron Woodley, Luke Rockhold, and Chris Weidman.
But almost as quickly as the GFL announced plans for a two-night launch with a pair of cards set for Los Angeles, the shows were cancelled and serious doubts were raised about whether or not the fledgling promotion would ever get off the ground.
“It kind of sucks,” retired UFC welterweight Matt Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I feel like we’ve read this book before. We’ve seen this whole story before.”
Sadly, more than a few MMA promotions have come and gone over the years, but GFL never even managed to get to the starting line with the first two shows already cancelled.
While Owen said in a statement that he’s still seeking funding to launch the GFL sometime in 2025, a lot of the fighters involved with the promotion have effectively already jumped ship.
Paige VanZant released a message on Instagram saying “free agent,” and ex-UFC fighter and former BKFC champion Alan Belcher revealed that the GFL made promises to book him for a fight but only on the condition that he would earn a “revenue share and stuff if I would fight for not a guaranteed purse.”
“What a shit show,” Brown said about the GFL. “It sucks because we do need more promotions out there I think. I think there needs to be more competition out there. There needs to be someone to step up, but it’s just a tough f*cking business model. I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen, maybe ever. We can talk about things that would need to happen for that to happen. It does not look good on any front.
“I don’t know how they get investors to do this. If you’re going to open a business and you’re looking for an investment, you show some sort of proof of concept. You do your market research, all these things. Are these investors even looking at what happens? This is a common story. We’ve read this book before.”
Promised paydays for GFL were never reported, but several athletes spoke out about the astronomical fees they were set to earn, which at least partially explained how so many prominent names signed with the promotion before a single event was held.
With only so many options available outside of the UFC, Brown understands why fighters might take a chance on GFL but at the same time he always had serious doubts and he’s not sure why there wasn’t more due diligence done by the managers representing the athletes.
“I don’t know how anybody fell for it,” Brown said. “Hopefully, they figure something out. There’s not a whole lot to even say about it. We’ve read this book so many times, and we’re just like, I just hope all the fighters recognize what it was.
“If they didn’t, it’s probably because of their shit ass managers. The f*cking managers in this sport are the worst. That’s the biggest problem when we talk about things like this.”
While Brown concedes there are “absolutely some good people” representing fighters in combat sports, he’s also personally seen the other side of the sport after spending 15 years in the UFC.
Of course, Brown also recognizes that he was fortunate to spend the vast majority of his career with the biggest organization in MMA but he knows that won’t be the case for many fighters. That’s why he actually hopes promotions like PFL find success in the long run but he also knows the UFC might end up as the last promotion standing no matter what.
“I wish somebody would get it together,” Brown said. “It’s not a good business. Somebody needs to do it.
“You’ve got to give props to Dana [White] and company. They took over the f*cking sport and they built it from nothing, more or less, and they’re a powerhouse. There’s no room out there for a lot of promotions. There’s not even room for it. The UFC is the f*cking monster.”
Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday, with audio-only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio
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