UFC BJJ’s new talent pipeline? PGF founder/acclaimed metal musician at PGF Champs heads to UFC stage

UFC BJJ has carved out its place in the submission wrestling landscape, and a jiu jitsu league co-owner/widely known metal guitarist has aided in their maneuvers thus far. Zoltan Bathory is a founding member of the band Five Finger Death Punch and is also co-owner of the Professional Grappling Federation, where a new season debuts on Wednesday.

With the ubiquity of the UFC brand, their recent efforts with Zuffa Boxing, and now the UFC Brazilian Jiu Jitsu efforts, they indicate a desire to want to monopolize every branch of the competitive mixed martial arts sphere. When the axe-wielder and competitive Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt was asked about his thoughts on the UFC BJJ efforts, Bathory said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“Well, first of all, we’re actually very good friends. So this is the scenario where we, as contest promoters [and] owners of PGF, are in a unique position because we are a team-based jiu-jitsu championship. That means you have five members in your team and all your team members [are] fighting against all other team members.

“So this is team-based, not individual. So we’re fundamentally different, we don’t get each other; we don’t compete with each other. It’s a completely different format, right. They are; most jiu jitsu competitions are individual. Individual martial artists fight for their individual victory or loss.”

“So we don’t get in each other’s way. In fact, we’re very good at finding talent. So a lot of our guys end up in UFC BJJ. In fact, we even have an agreement that every PGF champion will get a spot on UFC BJJ if they want to, right? That way we’re very close. They do what UFC does. So their structure is the same as UFC. That they have three rounds and that’s how they work, because that’s what is known to their fan base.”

“Then you have all these other ones, ADCC to CJI to all these other competitions, different rule sets, but they [are] all individually based. There are only a handful of team-based ones, right? That way, if you look at PGF, because it’s team-based, it fundamentally changes the way it works, right? This was also because what was important to us, again: the ruleset is important.”

“Because we wanted to have a really fast-paced entertainment program that promotes the spread of jiu jitsu. We want your grandmother to know what a triangle choke is, right. If you get there, we’re mainstream, right. So that’s one thing. Secondly, we wanted the athletes to be professional athletes. So make sure they get paid, because in order to get them paid, we have to first; well, first I was the investor. That’s what I put the money aside for.”

“But I knew what I was doing, in the sense that we had a plan where it would eventually transition into a sustainable structure and we got there. So it became a franchise-style league where we have four teams now. But it’s expanding to eight and then beyond. But each team is owned by an individual, right or a team.”

UFC BJJ, PGF, and the “reason why the billionaire class owns sports teams”

When further explaining the differences between PGF and UFC’s submission wrestling arm, Bathory continued [via Bowks Talking Bouts],

“So now these are franchise teams that are fully owned by each other and are fighting each other. We have a lot of interest because it’s kind of like getting into the NFL and NHL on the ground floor when it started. Imagine if you could get a team back then that you could own today, right? So basically that’s what we do.”

“So these teams are owned by the regional teams. For example, Alabama Twisters already have a huge fan base because all the people from Alabama [are] I’m rooting for this team now, right? Then we have the Las Vegas Kings, Colorado Wolverines and then the Philly Phenoms. They’re doing great, right? I see these franchises growing tremendously.”

“Like I said, they’re outright owners and not getting into the business side of it to bore people, but there’s a reason why the billionaire class owns sports teams. The tax rules are completely changing. It’s a very different environment when it comes down to it. It’s an asset. You’re not sponsoring a team, you own the team. So it’s a marketable asset. That changes everything.”

“We knew we would get there eventually, and we did, right? So that means we now have the ruleset that for me has to be the standard, the most entertaining, the fastest, the most dynamic and the most sustainable. That means this [is] just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We have managed to achieve those objectives. Athletes get paid and the world is learning jiu-jitsu.”