Former BKFC heavyweight champion Alan Belcher thinks he and other fighters have been scammed by the Global Fight League.
Following its inaugural draft in July, the GLF was slated to make its official debut with a stacked two-night event in May featuring a slew of former UFC stars like Holly Holm, Renan Barao, Uriah Faber, Tony Ferguson, and Alexander Gustafsson.
However, mere weeks after the announcement, the GFL confirmed that the back-to-back shows had been canceled because the promotion’s “main investor didn’t fulfill his April obligation,” founder Darren Owen said in a statement to Ariel Helwani.
“I believe we will be able work through it,” Owen added. “I think we can make it happen for June. Additionally I don’t foresee the event taking place in California but we absolutely will keep pushing forward.”
However, not everyone is convinced that the promotion will continue “pushing forward” and keep the promises it had already made to a slew of signed fighters.
In a statement on social media, Belcher called the GFL a scam, noting that there was no proof of the promotion receiving any money, nor did he believe that a single ticket was ever sold for the announced event.
“The GFL is f*cking cancelled, guys,” Belcher said on Instagram. “First off, I feel really bad for any of you guys that got flights. I had a lot of people that were supporting me that — I don’t think there was ever any tickets sold — but some people had already changed their plans and got flights to go out there to L.A. to watch me fight.
“It seems like it’s all just a big, lack of a better word, scam. I don’t know. That’s just what it looks like. There wasn’t any proof of the money that was supposed to be paid to the fighters. We all got screwed on this one.”
Global Fight League switches to profit-sharing model over guaranteed fight purses
A spreadsheet obtained by FightOracle on X confirmed that the promotion is attempting to move forward with a “non-profit” event that would give fighters a cut of the revenue rather than guaranteed purses.
However, it didn’t take long to decipher that the revenue share was actually a profit share, meaning that the event had to break even before anyone else got paid.
“He’s projecting event revenue of $5 million for 1 event minus $1.3 million to produce,” FightOracle tweeted. “The $5 million figure is the low end projection. High end $11 million plus. Projected profit $3.75 million. The $3.75 million would be paid out to 30 fighters (15 fights). Main event gets combined 30% of the $3.75 million profit or $562,500 each.
“He’s projecting $3 million in media rights, $800k in ticket sales, $1 million in sponsorships, $250k in merch. These are the low end projections. These are completely unobtainable figures. This is FYRE FESTIVAL.”
