I caught up with AFO President, Pete DiLorenzo and he took a moment away from his four month vacation to share some info with us. He shared with me that AFO is going to restructure their Amateur policies. I asked him what this entails.“Following the AFO’s next show on July 15th in Revere. AFO amateur championships will be contested for annually much like boxing’s Golden Gloves. Amateur titles will not be fought for and defended on a fight by fight basis like professional titles are, as they had been previously. Pete Stated.
“I wasn’t fully into the concept of amateur championships when we first installed the amateur championships into the AFO and just a few months after doing it, we could all see we needed to reform the system, it’s flawed for many reasons.” Said AFO President Pete Dilorenzo.
“On one hand, we want to give our amateur fighters something to fight for. We’ve always helped build amateurs into pros from day one and to give them a championship belt to fight for was a great experience.”
It is very hard for organizations in dealing with amateurs. Guys end up going pro and the belt is vacant. Pete then shared some other important issues with amateur belts.
“However, we also ran into many problem of our amateur champions not being able to defend their titles because they had other fights for other organizations coming up. It’s fine with us that they want to fight around in different places. We would never want to prohibit amateur fighters from taking fights in other companies because they’re not getting paid and trying to get as much experience as they can before they decide to turn pro. Another problem was amateur fighters looking to match make themselves into title fights through the path of least resistance. And many that are looking to turn pro are also looking to then lower their weight class which leaves the belt in the air. “
“Amateur MMA is about gaining experience and fighting competitive match-ups. More and more we would see coaches try to get their amateur fighters cheap wins over sure to be overwhelmed opponents in hopes of padding their records to get title shots.” Dilorenzo said.
“Therefore, we’ve decided to do an annual amateur championship for each weight division at our annual ‘Night of Champions’ event. We will look at the best fighters from each weight division from within the AFO first and then around the region and match up fighters competitively to fight for titles.”
On July 15th in Revere, MA at AFO “Glory”, the amateur match ups at 125 and 145 lbs will go on scheduled with a title belt at stake. However, the title will not be defended by the winners at any future AFO event. This does not mean we will not see many great fights. I then asked Pete if we will have some interim fights to set up the contenders for the Night of Champions.
Pete stated “Any weight class where we have 3 or 4 that could fight for a title the show before hand will decide who gets the shot.. I point out - we will always look to who's loyal to the AFO 1st as we are our OWN company and will help our fighters grow 1st.”
What do you guys all think?? I feel even though having amateur belts is a great achievement for fighters and exciting as a fan, it does pose some very serious issues for organizations. That is why it is crucial to have limited belts and choose it very wisely. One thing will be for certain AFO will continue to have rip roaring fights and will continue to roll. Thank you for your time Pete.