The FF-Files: Long Overdue Press for Campbell McLaren, Combate Global
Combate Global founder Campbell McLaren wanted some press for his organization, and now he’s got it.
The company formerly known as Combate Americas suddenly rebranded itself to Combate Global at the beginning of 2021. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this newly named league took up residence in a Univision studio in Miami, entering into an arrangement apparently lucrative enough for Univision to purchase an equity stake. Before the switch, the last three CA-named events took place in Peru, Puerto Rico and Mexico, which perhaps prompted a change from the Americas to the world. No matter the official reason for its transformation, CA to CG also led to a shakeup in its lineups, downscaling to roughly six-fight offerings pitting together various prospects, newcomers and the occasional major organization ex-pat in its ranks.
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With little reasonable way to cover the bouts live—they often take place around midnight on Friday nights—and a partial fight library hidden behind a paywall, most in the media need to rely on the official results straight from the source. This is normal for most organizations around the world, and far from a targeted practice to a fledgling fight promotion. While the main cards may be on one platform, the preliminary portions are relegated to Facebook or possibly held over for another broadcast. More on that later. On the eve of its first relaunched show in April, Sherdog reached out to Combate requesting that it send out a list of official results after every show so that we could update them efficiently. In response, Combate gave us exactly what we needed—for one single event.
When following up with the company a month later, after fighters
wrote in complaining that their records had not yet updated,
Combate officials directed our staff to a list of links to past
recaps on their website. Four more post-event links went out to
Sherdog staff on subsequent weeks before, once again, they ceased
at the end of May. To note, the emails did not contain the actual
results but hyperlinks to the Combate webpage with post-fight
recaps. Unfortunately, the CG-penned reports for these cards were
chock full of errors and, at times, completely wrong.
On occasion, Combate could not even spell the names of its own fighters correctly. Victors were sometimes marked as having lost; others picking up wins by submission could have TKO listed, etc. At a card at the end of October, the “official results” on the Combate webpage contained four errors among the six fights listed. In the Cristian Barraza-Diego Silva tilt, the page claimed Barraza won by rear-naked choke. The lone photo of the match displayed a guillotine choke, and the later correction stated that the fight ended by armbar. Another notorious sentence read this way: “Levi Escobar defeated Daniel Sanchez in the round by unanimous decision.” Not only does that not make sense, but it turns out Sanchez actually won that main event. If Sherdog is being directed to read the recap sheets but everything’s made up and the points don’t matter, what are recordkeepers supposed to do?
As if it couldn’t get any better, a smattering of information dribbled out on social media, including photographs and gifs of each card’s footage. This proved to be a big problem, as Combate decided to air matches out of sequence. On May 30, the last date that we received information without having to ask at the end of October, one matchup on the broadcast took place in April. This was something that One Championship has become infamous for doing, tape-delaying shows and not letting results out until they hit the airwaves. One would eventually disclose that matches were tape-delayed and even informed Sherdog directly of its schedule. If your transparency is worse than One, you have some work to do.
How are we, the storied book keepers of the sport, to know when a fight actually happened if an organization pulls this? Oscar Herrera prevailed at a July card, but CG declined to say what happened as the match was being saved for another broadcast. Combate never bothered following up about this fight, and it is unclear if it the man known as “Moisty” slid onto a future show months later. As luck would have it, news of that result leaked and Sherdog learned of it from other sources shortly after it took place.
In another instance, Shojin Miki and Wascar Cruz faced off at the end of October, and the result was not released, with the intention of showing the fight later. Spoiler alert: Miki missed weight and tapped Cruz with a rear-naked choke in less than 90 seconds. If you think Sherdog is breaking the news that Miki won, you should speak to the fighters involved first. What is the point of concealing a fight result to air later if it gets out on social media?
Concerns began to mount, however, and we needed more information from missing matches as fighters wanted their work to be officially counted. When asked directly about these and other issues, Combate officials were initially helpful, and of note, Mike Afromowitz deserves recognition for his quick responses and professional candor during our inquiries. The same cannot be said for another member of the team; the outspoken head of the organization replied to one thorough email that presented the issues and asked for answers.
“You and your lengthy email are not worth the bother of answering,” responded CG chief Campbell McLaren.
Sherdog Fight Finder tracks hundreds of events each month, with a vast quantity of fights flowing into our inboxes on a regular basis. Many organizations will send information straight to us, some even formatting the results as we have requested in our Fight Finder guide. If fights do not take place live and are kept in a vault for potential future display, they can be marked as exhibitions as we may never know when they took place—a problem, to be sure. Consider the arrogance a promoter possesses to send a worldwide fight record database a link and demand they gather the fight results themselves. Then picture that same promoter telling the record keepers to shove it when asked legitimate questions about their operation.
“Quite frankly I don’t care if you consider our bouts exhibitions or fights,” McLaren wrote. “My TV audience of nearly 700,000 viewers loves them.”
In a few short sentences, he said the quiet part out loud: His fighters are secondary to the ratings, interchangeable and disposable as long as there is a product to trot out. Aren’t promoters supposed to promote their fighters, build them up and hoist them out front and center? As it stands, results from this league are hidden or at the very least obfuscated, bringing forth a serious question the Fight Finder team has if every Combate fight has been recorded. Why should CG be exempt from this standard, simple reporting request? The organization does its roster members a massive disservice if the fighters compete but the results are not submitted to the proper third parties. If trees throw down in the forest and no one is there to record the encounter, do they make a sound?
We look forward to the evenhanded response from the organization, which can be sent straight to fightfinder@sherdog.com, along with any actual Fight Finder-related inquiries.
