Agon Wrestling I to Give Amateur Wrestling an MMA-Style PPV Card
On October 27, 2013, in Las Vegas, amateur-style wrestling will go professional as Agon Wrestling Championships holds its first pay-per-view card on Flowrestling.org. Bloody Elbow presents promotional video for the main event between Ben Askren and Quentin Wright.
Around the time of the first Metamoris, a pay-per-view card featuring no gi grappling between some of the world's greatest submission artists, prominently featuring stars of mixed martial arts, I wondered why amateur wrestling could not stage the same sort of marquee event for its own sport. After all, MMA is loaded with decorated amateur wrestlers, and this country has plenty of Olympic team/world team hopeful wrestlers waiting for a chance to make money plying their trade.
As things would turn out, just such an event will soon come to pass. In eleven days, in Las Vegas, at the Rio Hotel and Casino, Agon Wrestling Championships will hold the first of a series of pay-per-view wrestling cards. The card features four bouts, each between highly decorated amateur wrestlers, with each match including one current MMA fighter. The rules, which you can view here, consist of a hybridization of modern American folkstyle and freestyle wrestling rules.
Agon's main event will pit a pair of two-time NCAA champions and four-time All-American wrestlers against one another: current Bellator welterweight champion and 2008 Olympian Ben Askren versus Penn State stand out and 2016 Olympic hopeful Quentin Wright.
The remainder of the card appears as follows:
Nick Simmons, 4x NCAA All American, 5th in the world in 2011 vs Stephen Abas, 4x NCAA All American, 3x NCAA champion, 2004 Olympic silver medalist.
Jordan Oliver, 4x NCAA All American, 2x NCAA champion vs Lance Palmer, 4x NCAA All American, NCAA finalist.
Jay Borchell, 2x NCAA All American, NCAA champion vs Aaron Simpson, 2x NCAA All American.
