A few minutes with Mark Pavelich the Owner and President of Maximum Fighting Championships (MFC)
Yesterday I was talking with Scott the media relations contact for the MFC. He was a great guy and he set up interviews for me with Ryan Jimmo and Dwayne Lewis, two of Canada’s best LHW fighters. We will be doing these later this week. Scott also said that he would try to get Mark Pavelich, the president and owner of the MFC, to give me call later that day, but that he knew Mark was very busy and could not promise anything.
Last night at around 8:30, I was sitting down watching some TV and had almost forgotten about my interview with Mark when the phone rang.
On the other line was Mark Pavelich himself wanting to talk MMA, and, of course, I was going to oblige.
Here are some of the high lights of our conversation:
First I asked him about their HUGE show this Friday.
He said;
-This is their biggest and best show ever with top names from all over the world, Thales Leites, Wilson Gouveia, JT “Money” Taylor, Ryan Jimmo, Dwayne Lewis, Soloman Hutcherson, etc, etc.
-He expects some amazing fights due to all the top talent and amazing match ups ( I have to agree),
Mark talked about how he can’t wait to see the Ryan Jimmo fight as Gouveia has not been giving Jimmo the respect he deserves, and he felt there could be a big upset.
- They have doubled the size of their venue to 5000 and have sold all but 300 tickets thus far.
-They are successful because they have put in the time (11 years), taken some bumps along the way but always learned and continued to grow.
So I asked Mark if he had any plans for any expansion or any Eastern shows, considering all the media attention he has done out here lately.
He said:-He is planning on expanding in Alberta soon but did not want to elaborate on dates and times.
- He has nothing in store for Ontario, due to the regulations, and just wants to stay clear of it until it’s cleared up.However he did mention possibly signing some Adrenaline fighters and selling out the John Labatt Centre, something I have been saying for years that could happen.
-He said that Canada has the BEST MMA fans in the world ever, and that MMA is the only business that a company can stay in Canada and be more successful than America due to the popularity of it here
-Mark also said that they are the third biggest MMA organization in North America, probably the world, and that his family doesn’t settle for third.
-Mark told me that MFC has shows in August, September, and October and that they will cross new territory in these shows.
With everything that is going with Western Canadian MMA as far as the LGIO tournament and WEC coming to Edmonton, I thought I would ask Mark what he thought of the competition?He had a few things to say:
-He doesn’t think a whole lot about the WEC coming to Edmonton.
- He said, no disrespect to Hominick or Horodecki, but the card other than those two is not nearly as good as his and they don’t put on near as good a show. Why watch that card when you can watch Thales Leites, Wilson Gouveia, JT “Money” Taylor, Ryan Jimmo, Dwayne Lewis, Soloman Hutcherson, etc, etc.
-As far as the LGIO tournament he said he laughs about it. They said “we are gonna do this and beat MFC” but they only sold about 800 tickets at the same venue that we have sold out 18 times straight .
-Mark also said that the way LGIO does business was not the way he would go about it, stating that “they came in and went after all our sponsors. That’s not how to do business” He said that they should have stayed where they came from and that he doesn’t expect them to last.
So, after talking competition, I brought up the obvious, this weekend going head to head with UFC.- Mark told me that MFC has become so successful because they don’t think about “taking down” other companies but rather they concentrate on building their own brand their own way.
-Mark also shared with me a little something about Bobby Lashley that most insiders already know. LASHLEY IS BEING HAND FED. Lashley was supposed to fight for them on a show that HDNet was going to air but HDNet wanted a hand picked opponent for Lashley. Pavelich wouldn’t oblige, keeping his organization’s standards high, as well as his own.
-He said that there is more than enough room for him and his family to build their own MMA dynasty and that it will be unique and their own style.
-Mark was very forthcoming in telling me he “didn’t know anything about anything” but that he knows MMA and is the best at it in the country, and after 11 years of success I tend to agree
-He also had a word of advice for all the Montreal shows and that was, “be your own show, take your lumps. No show makes money overnight, stop talking crap and go out and sell more tickets."
I then asked Mark about his policy about his fighters going to the “Big Show”, the UFC, and if that was something he wanted or if he wanted them to stay put? He told me:
-I used to be excited to get my fighters into the UFC. I trained two of the first Canadian UFC fighters, but not anymore. Now we keep our top guys like Ryan Jimmo, Dwayne Lewis and Tom Watson who are all expected to be staying put with the MFC. We won’t give them up.
-He saw “DW” come into TKO and show Stephan Patry no respect. He gave him no props for the show that he ran, although Mark agrees was a great show. “DW” came in, took all the top talent, Sam Stout, Jonathon Goulet, Mark Hominick, Patrick Cote and of course GSP, and it tore the TKO organization apart. The UFC did nothing to promote TKO and it died in the process.
- Mark said that they have come a long way and have a long way to go, but he now owns the biggest MMA promotion in Canada and will continue to have their regular top fighters in their roster. They will always be their own brand of MMA.
Thanks to Mark for taking the time out of his very busy schedule to talk with me and thank you to Scott for setting it up!!
