Go to the washroom, get some popcorn, comeback sit down and get ready for an E-true Hollywood type story. I met Mark Pavelich at UFC 66 – Liddell vs. Ortiz 2 where Jason MacDonald Choked out Chris Leben unconscious. When I saw him walking through the lobby I was like who is that? - I didn’t know who he was, but I knew he was somebody-I had to go and meet him. He was walking around like he owned the place, a rockstar maybe, I was immediately intrigued by his character, and I was drawn to him, like a fan would be to a famous fighter. I’m from Malibu, CA and I’ve never seen anyone pull off wearing sunglasses indoors – he did, and still does. Well we started talking and immediately hit it off, the rest is history.

    Since I’ve started working for Mark, writing on the website, we seem to talk a lot on the phone and I was intrigued by the passion he had for MMA and the stories he was telling me, so I decided to do some extensive research, and get an exclusive one on one interview with MFC President Mr. Mark Pavelich. Now I have gathered the knowledge to give you a complete look inside the MFC and the truth about the state of Canadian MMA. I will explain to you how it all started, its sudden ending and the comeback of all comebacks. How it all became, why it fell, and its return; it’s a story seldom heard.

    It all started with Mark taking baby steps to get MMA sanctioned in Alberta. First off it was extremely hard to find the right contacts. Then came endless hours of work with Lawyer Martin G Shultz (who won a pioneer award at MFC 9- No Excuses) to find a way to approach the City of Edmonton.  It took endless amounts of meetings with the city council members over at City Hall to even put a slight dent in transforming MMA from a barbaric spectacle into a mainstream sport. Hours and months of mass paper work went by until the millions of rules and bylaws were revised to start a sanctioning body. Do you know how much time and effort that must of took? That’s passion man, that’s love! It took over a year and a half. Mark already had a successful business and had no need to spend time, effort, and money to get MMA legalized. Because of Mark’s dedication and passion for MMA, it’s now legal in Alberta.

   Mark told me that when the MFC hit Edmonton legally, the response he got right off the bat was crazy. Selling out shows and getting over 4000 people at one event was impressive. The MFC was on a climb to the mountain top, without ever looking down. He put on shows all over Alberta including Calgary, Lethbridge, Slave Lake, Grand Prairie and its home base of Edmonton. But at that point in time MMA wasn’t as big, sponsors weren’t educated enough to get involved with the sport, tickets stopped selling as fast and the support of the Canadian MMA community was gone. Rivals were made, lies and accusations were made up and the sweet became sour. Mr. Pavelich wanted out and that’s exactly what he did. After years in the business he painfully gave it all up, he finally had enough. His other business was doing great but it couldn’t heal his broken heart that MMA left him with.

   After the MFC crashed so did MMA in Alberta and its close surrounding provinces. The few shows that were put on legally, were only allowed to happen because of Mark’s hard work to get MMA sanctioned, but nobody paid respect to that and nobody ever showed appreciation. Not even a Christmas card! Mark had a two year layoff from the sport, when MMA left a sour taste in his mouth. Pavelich despised MMA, and I don’t blame him. He hated it to the point where people would call him to talk about the sport and he wouldn’t want to say one word about it. There was so much disrespect showed to him and his family. Can you believe that shameless people wrote letters to the boxing commission that Mark and his family shouldn’t be in the sport of MMA - that just pisses me off, there would not be any MMA in Alberta if it wasn’t for Mark Pavelich, don’t you people understand that! When Mark successfully put on shows out of his home base of Edmonton people had the audacity to try everything in their power to stop it from happening. These little issues cost Mark thousands of dollars and you wonder why he’s bitter? Even some of the boxing commissions around Alberta had some discrepancies within the MMA community. Mark Pavelich was, on a number of occasions, falsely accused of either stopping a small show (trust me he doesn’t have time for that) or doing some shady business affairs which has never happened unless you stepped on his toes first then he steps on your neck, to me that’s the way of life. If someone messes with my business or family I will go to extreme measures to get payback. Some fighters even backed out of there fights close to the date, to mess with mark’s business or just to stab him in the back because they think his momentum is to strong, which is ridiculous, it’s disgraceful. People know what they did; it’s shameful, trying to get back on the bandwagon after pushing Mark off! People should shut their mouths when they don’t know anything about the true details.

     People shouldn’t say anything without knowing anything. It’s so childish to trash talk the Pavelich’s because they are real, they have emotions and they show them, what’s wrong with that? I would be mad to if people talked trash about me or my family on a public bases, to me these trash talkers are only showing their jealousy. Mark is very successful at what he does and the bottom line is, he’s building himself an MMA Empire. After his return back to MMA because his love outgrew his hate Mark’s been on a tare. He has sold out pretty much all of his shows. The MFC is the most known MMA organization in Canada, and has the most media attention before and after shows. I saw the results to MFC 11-gridiron here in Malibu on my satellite, TSN showed them, that’s big news for MMA. Mark tells me that they hit the front page on both newspapers in Edmonton. Also the MFC gets on PPV and the fight network I could really say that the MFC is the fastest growing MMA organization in the world. The facts are that the MFC grossed more then the IFL did last year, and has more media coverage then any other MMA organization in Canada. There’s a lot of hype on these other organizations but the MFC has really built themselves from the bottom up. Having his son Dave Pavelich as Vice-President is also very cool and Mark tells me Dave has helped their growth and will continue to do so, they have some huge news coming soon that will blow Canadian MMA out of the water. Mark hasn’t told me all the details but just enough to get me excited. Looking at the MFC website and their repeated updates you can tell they’re always improving. I hear their live gate is always getting bigger and their shows are always getting better. They put money back into the MFC organization to get bigger and that’s the formula. They change little things and huge things and that’s the difference between building an organization than just having it hyped. The Pavelich family also helps the less fortunate by feeding the homeless, and working with the Big Brother foundation, who else does that? The MFC is a force in the MMA world and will continue to be in the future, they are building themselves an empire that I can’t see being stopped.

     Mark is a very stubborn man. It was very hard for him to say this but he told me that for the first time in his life he wouldn’t mind being number 2 in the world. The UFC has had too big of a head start plus has way more money to play with, the UFC is the Superbowl of MMA, forever and always. We all know that Mark isn’t the most politically correct man in the business to say the least but could have the most passion and emotion for this sport. To me that shows a lot of character to be yourself and put yourself on the line for what you love. Let’s not forget the fact that Mr.Pavelich has paved the way for MMA in Canada and people tried to walk on his pavement without paying any respect. People are shameless and their disrespect would get the best of me too. The MFC will keep on improving as they have plans on putting on shows in the U.S.A in 2008 which will be another step for them to expand their Empire. Mark told me that he’s only at 50% of where he wants to be and he knows that this is already 100% better then most others out there. Well that’s how it all started, how it became a force, why it fell, and most important how the MFC has built their EMPIRE.

This was another filler and I’m matt miller, always bringing the most interesting on the table. Good night and keep reading.