I spoke with “World Series of Fighting” President Ray Sefo about an hour before the WSOF 2 media conference call yesterday and had a chance to get some one-on-one time with the K-1 kickboxing legend. We discussed a ton of topics, including the big show this weekend in New Jersey that features a heavyweight showdown between Andrei Arlovski and Anthony Johnson, but one of the biggest piece of news came out when we started to discuss the long-term plans of the company.
When asked about any plans for a WSOF title or Grand Prix tournament format for future shows, Sefo was quick to confirm that both of these things would occur:
“That’s going to happen probably by our fourth event, we are going to look to put a belt on somebody. That being said, the Grand Prix thing… it’s definitely going to happen. we originally the structure of WSOF was going to be tournament scenarios. Obviously it took longer than we expected to put things together, so the format changed, but that being said, the tournament format is still going to happen…. 100% it won’t happen this year, but next year, we are definitely going to look at doing something next year.”
The most-probable weight class for this tournament will be either lightweight, welterweight, or middleweight to start with. Sefo also mentioned that the promotion might hold some events overseas:
“There’s a lot of exciting things happening coming forth for WSOF in the near future, not only here in the US but there is also a lot of talks that we are going to travel, going back and forth, travel the world next year and, you know, things in place for Brazil, Israel, Dubai, Australia, New Zealand, Japan… obviously for us this year is to focus on our America market, establish the brand here and our guys, then next year look to move globally.”
WSOF 2 is airing from Atlantic City, New Jersey, on March 23, starting at 9:30 PM on NBC Sports.