BMF MMA co-owner Connor Halliday has revealed the reason for the rapid growth of his recently-founded promotion.
The 27-year-old grew up in the industry as the son of a promotion-running father. He originally wanted to get into the amateur MMA industry by rebranding his father’s old promotion as Stormforce 2.0. However, the idea never materialised.
He then eventually went on to co-found BMF MMA, otherwise known as Badmofo MMA, alongside Steve Maeer.
The Barnsley-based organisation has grown exponentially since being founded, and Halliday has revealed why.
He said: “I don’t think we expected it to be this quick, but the ideas we had and the way we wanted to progress every time we were doing a show – like you said, some people are just flat, they’re staying like this [the same] all the time, and we haven’t.
“If you look at the difference between show one and show six, it looks like a completely different show. Everybody knows, if you’re a promoter, you’re not making f*cking hundreds of thousands and millions of pounds. Whatever money we make, we put straight back into the show. The production gets brought up every time because any money we make goes to that.
“So, the last show, the amount of people – the new cage, the walk-out, the big screen, all that kind of stuff – everyone was blown away by it. But, it’s gonna come to October and it’s gonna be better, it’s got to be better every time!”
He continued: “Last year, we won ‘Regional Show of the Year’ tied with FCC. This year, we’re coming to smash everybody out of the park and take it for ourselves.”
Halliday Discusses Origin Story of BMF MMA
BMF MMA have hosted six MMA events since they were founded, with the seventh coming on 7 October in Barnsley. They have also made waves in putting on fights in K-1 and junior MMA – the latter being something that was difficult 20 years ago.
The 2024 roadmap has also been announced for the promotion, with a first trip to Scotland planned in May.
However, the inception of the organisation came as a surprise even to Halliday.
He said: “Me and Steve [Maeer] have been friends since 2016-ish, however long that is – whenever Almighty [FC] started, because he originally ran that.
“We went to the UFC in New York, for the BMF fight, for Masvidal and Diaz. In 2020, Steve was trying to set up a gaming convention, we were gonna run it at the Barnsley Metrodome, for whatever reason it didn’t happen. We still had the Metrodome and we were like ‘F*ck it, why don’t we make a fight show?’.
“Steve’s got a lot of ideas, I’ve got a lot of ideas [and] so we would meet every single week and just, you know, pass ideas between each other. It ended up being another year until we even ended up doing the first show, but our ideas clicked and everything that we wanted was the same.”
Connor Halliday Full Exclusive Interview
You can watch the full interview with Halliday below:
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