UFC Grappling League Coming Soon(TM)
A quick look at what has been promised in 2025.
During a recent interview with the Sports Business Journal, UFC CEO & President Dana White discussed the future of the world’s leading MMA organization and it’s various endeavors including the UFC Fight Pass Invitational (FPI) grappling event series. I’d personally like to reiterate that that name is a mouthful and so frustratingly bland, yet still more original than Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series as a brand name.
During a recent interview with Sports Business Journal the head honcho of the Ultimate Fighting Championship discussed future business endeavors that the UFC’s parent company, TKO, would be pursuing. For those that missed it, TKO is the new company that houses both the UFC and WWE after the latter’s purchase by Endeavor. And come to think of it, I take back what I said about the Contender Series brand name and put TKO in the spot of “least original brand name” because oh my god can someone just think of something a bit better please?
Anyway, during possible future expansions into other sports including boxing (while also hyping up the incredibly dumb Power Slap), White mentioned that there is a reality tv show in the works for a jiu jitsu competition organization that falls under the TKO/UFC umbrella.
Why is this relevant? Well as I already mentioned the UFC have their own competition league for jiu jits, the FPI so this is either a solidifying of that league as a mainstay or a restructuring of the FPI into a more UFC like event organization.
For grappling as a professional sport, this is big news. For one, the FPI series have put on impressive events with high level talent and recently have scored some notable signings like Mikey Musumeci who recently parted ways with ONE Championship, another MMA organization also running a grappling league. FPI rules are mostly the Eddie Bravo Invitational rule set with a few minor adjustments. Aside from putting on solid shows, FPI is arguably one of the more easily accessible events given they’re lovingly paired with UFC Fight Pass. For just $15 a month, you not only get an array of MMA content such as LFA events, replays of UFCs, UFC Prelims and the like, but also the FPI series.
Meanwhile the only other major grappling promotion around, FloGrappling’s Who’s Number One (WNO), are on the FloGrappling subscription service but priced at $30 a month. It’s…well its something that I’ve railed against in the past to the point that I just gave up on watching anything hosted on FloGrappling platform. Including the 2024 ADCC World Championships, and instead watched the entirely free on YouTube Craig Jones Invitational instead.
That said, a full on grappling league does pose some challenges. The UFC does like to have its fighters signed to exclusive contracts, which one could imagine would be the case for this new league that is due to arrive in the new year. Exclusive contracts means a shrinking of available talent for other event organizations, as well as a likelihood of fighter pay being stifled. Something the UFC has long been chastised for in the MMA realm. Does this mean this is 100% going to happen? No, but given past behavior and a cynical understanding of how much they like it when the fighters rally for a collective bargaining agreement, it’s not improbable.
So, what does this mean exactly? Well, details are very sparse and Dana White et al., have been known to really hype something up only for it to be delivered in an underwhelming state (see: the actual real world Fight Island during the pandemic).
I’ve long argued, both publically and privately, that there should be a proper grappling league. WNO has been hampered heavily because of the high cost of entry as a viewer, and the horrifyingly dreary prospect of being overly reliant on having Gordon Ryan be their poster child. ONE’s own grappling division is fun, but hasn’t really picked up any momentum and now with Mikey Musumeci leaving, that aspect of ONE’s events is diminished slightly. CJI has been slated for a return in 2025 but that seems to be a one-event-a-year sort of deal. As for the ADCC and the ADCC Opens, well…they missed the opportunity to do something meaningful and burnt a lot of goodwill during their feud with Craig Jones & CJI this past year. So a proper grappling league, headed by the folks at the UFC seems the best shot to at least have some regularly scheduled grappling events that have some overarching consistency and meaning behind them.
As mentioned, WNO itself is a league, but I legitmately cannot name any of it’s divisional champions let alone two people from each division. The opportunity to grow and expand grappling into a more professional sport is seemingly close. Although I also said that in the beginning of this year, so I am probably also believing the hype too much. Again.