The Professional Grappling Federation (PGF) draft will be pure pandemonium! The PGF is the only jiu jitsu promotion bringing fans a pre-season, a combine, and a live draft, before their regular season. On Sunday, 29 October, the four PGF Season 5 team managers will select their teams using an auction draft. Four team managers will draft the 20 PGF Season 5 competitors in the same style you would for a fantasy football auction draft…but this will be LIVE on Brandon Mccaghren’s YouTube Channel with the fans getting to see all the scheming and wheeling and dealing!
As PGF fans already know, the league commissioner, 10th Planet Black Belt Brandon “BMAC”Mccaghren, built the promotion to bring all the excitement of other sports to the submission grappling scene. He shortened matches to six minutes and only awards points to individuals who score submissions (six points for chokes/kills; three points for joint locks/breaks). He created the first jiu jitsu league in the world, complete with a pre-season (the qualifiers), a regular season, and a post-season tournament. To bring in a little excitement fans enjoy from professional football seasons, the Commissioner has instituted a combine and a draft.
At or around 10am Central time on 29 October, the 20 PGF Season 5 competitors will participate in a combine. Competitors will be told to test your might (I really hope you just had Mortal Kombat music pop in your head) in five events. This combine will consist of five events. The first is Grip strength. They will use a GRIP STRENGTH measuring device to make it fair. While the PGF is a no gi competition, grips still count…a lot. Then the competitors will show off their SQUEEZE POWER…using a rollbot (I’ll let you google it). For the third event, competitors will showcase their explosive potential with the medicine ball toss. We all know core strength is paramount for grapplers and the fourth event tests it as well as reaction time. A “Hardcore Plank” will serve as the fourth event, where competitors perform a plank in the front leaning rest/pushup position and have to actively press buttons with their hands as they light up. The competitors will be rated on both time in the plank as well as how many buttons were correctly pressed. Finally, the event that has the most potential for true excitement, we have the “Catch and release” event. The final event involves one six-minute round with a local white belt. This round will have three, two-minute sections dedicated to wrestling on the feet, guard play, and top position play. For two minutes, the managers will watch the competitors wrestle; for 2 minutes the managers we will watch them play guard; and, for two minutes, the managers will watch them play top position. The concept for “Catch and Release” is to give competitors a chance to run their game a bit, so managers can see how the competitors move.
The four team managers will have a handful of hours to go over their notes and build their draft strategy. Then, at 6pm Central, the PGF Season 5 Draft will go LIVE. Unlike the last few drafts that followed the “Snake draft” strategy, this season will be an Auction draft. Each of the four Team Managers will have $2500 in their budget. The Team Managers will get assigned a draft order. In the past, this order was decided by the most exciting Connect Four tournament in history.
Whichever Team Manager earns the right to go first, they will choose which competitor will step up on the auction block first. The Manager who makes the highest bid will add the competitor to their team. After the first competitor, the next Team manager in order will select the next competitor who will be up for auction. Fans new to fantasy auction drafts might not think there is any strategy to the draft order…but there is. With each Manager having $2500 to build their five-competitor roster, the math works out to an average budget of $500 per competitor. But that’s now how these things work out. A savvy Manager would choose early for auction a higher-level competitor who they didn’t want to pick (e.g. maybe they weren’t high on Kemoy who performed well, but not amazing in Season 2…btw, this is a hypothetical example of a clearly deranged Manager and not the strategy the editorial staff at Eggheadwarrior.com would endorse). This move could get the other Managers to overpay and reduce their draft coffers. This reduction in coffers could allow the original Manager to target their favorites and spend less. Enough strategy. The main takeaway is the Draft will be DYNAMIC, EXCITING, and you KNOW there will be SMACK TALK amongst the Managers.
Fans who want to watch previous iterations of the combine can watch the PGF Season 1 combine HERE and the PGF Season 3 combine HERE. Fans who want to watch the previous Drafts can see the PGF Season 3 draft HERE and the PGF Season 4 draft HERE.
For fans or Managers that need a little extra help in grading the draft prospects…man, if there were only some helpful individuals who did pre-draft shows. WAIT! There IS! The PGF Insiders has produced Pre-Draft Breakdowns for both of the previous drafts and will do so again. Fans who want to look back at the Outstanding Prognostication of the PGF Insiders can see their PGF Season 3 Pre-Draft Breakdown HERE. Of course, the Editorial Board at Eggheadwarrior.com will continue to bring you pre-draft boards as they have done in the past.
If anyone reading this article wants to become a part of the PGF or knows someone that should be a part of the PGF, YOU MUST ACT NOW! There’s only two qualifiers left! On 24 September (TOMORROW), 10th Planet HQ will host a qualifier. On October 7, 10th Planet Huntsville will host a qualifier. If you can’t make it to one of these qualifiers, you can only hope there will be spots open and hope you can find a promotion with BMAC involved where you can make an impression.
But seriously, the PGF is the most fan-friendly, fan-interactive, exciting submission grappling promotion on the planet. Check out Brandon Mccaghren’s YouTube channel from 29 October – 4 November for the “Shark Week of Jiu Jitsu” that is the PGF?
The editors at EggheadWarrior.com thank the PGF Insiders, and all the competitors for providing the content of this article. The PGF Insiders will always work to provide the latest and greatest information regarding the PGF and you can see their weekly podcasts on the McDojo Life YouTube Channel or Brandon Mccaghren’s channel (if a member). Special thanks to Walo Jay for all the great photos. Those interested in Walo’s work can check out his YouTube page (link is specifically to Walo’s Handsome Kevin short) and Walo’s website.
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