This is what happens when the brutality of UFC meets the spectacle of WWE tag team wrestling.
Team Fighting Championship (TFC) pits groups of fighters against one another in a 5-versus-5 format, where the object of competition is to beat every man on the opposite team until they can stand no longer.
Banned in the United States and based in Latvia, TFC has had little coverage in its short time as a sport and even its lifespan is currently in question – after three events, they haven't made any public statements since June 2015.
TFC wants to bring "group street fighting" to sports.
While it's billed as group MMA, it's pretty often devoid of any technique (if you're an elite martial artist, why not case your dreams in the UFC?) and speaking to mmafighting.com, president of U.S. independent MMA organisation Global Proving Ground said:
"It's a group fight. It's a gang fight. It's more or less a barroom brawl without the bottles."
Unlike a fight in even the seediest bar you can imagine, there's not much of an audience. The contests are held in an empty warehouse that houses a 40 x 40 ft ring. Five referees monitor the action – one for each pair of fighters – but they don't really do much to keep the action in check, probably because there aren't actually many rules to enforce.
The key to victory appears to be taking out an opponent early – from there you can outnumber your enemies and rain down pain. As a fight draws to a close, it's usually three of four guys from the winning team slaughtering a sole survivor while he's on the floor begging for mercy.
The winning team receives a €5,000 prize.
Winning teams receive €5,000 in cash – which means no one is really ready to turn professional just yet – and teams to have competed in TFC's three events so far include the UK, USA, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden and Russia.
If TFC ever returns, don't expect to see Conor McGregor dancing inside of an empty warehouse captaining Team Ireland anytime soon.
[via YouTube]
