The FF-Files: Back in the World of Adventures

“I’m back in the world of adventures. In grand new adventures, expected to fly. I’m deep into sonical changes, radical strangeness and I don’t know why.”
—The Flower Kings, “Back in the World of Adventures”

Here at Sherdog Fight Finder, the impossible is not only quite possible, but actually somewhat ordinary in the scheme of things. In our revived FF-Files series, we have regularly shared some of the craziest things people write to us—which, to be clear, is not the tip of the iceberg but remains a portion of what we receive—and even pointed out a few bad seeds in the industry that deserve public shaming.

Much like when idly thrift shopping, our staff tends to mosey along and shrug off the usual suspects and milquetoast oddities as old hat. Fighters wearing their groin cup on the outside? Seen it. A once-in-a-lifetime Cobra Hold submission? Yawn. The worst lighting in a horribly choreographed and edited “fight” you could imagine? You know it. It’s when something shows up in our inbox that causes a record-scratch moment; a post or video so wacky that it stops us in its tracks. This one did just that.


You see it. We all see it. That’s ping pong, involving a guy sharing the same first name as the fighter who supposedly lost. For a smidge of background info, this fighter wrote in claiming a loss in 2012—the wrong year, by the way—was actually a fight he won, and he sent in that video in the midst of an AI-drafted email. There’s no way this was an accident. It’s too bizarrely specific and has a relevant name in the title. This isn’t a one-off on the YouTube channel, either. It’s years and years of Brazilian ping pong tournaments. If that strikes your fancy, you now have plans for your wide-open Sunday.

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Behold in all his glory: Randall Flann. This inventor—and we use the term loosely—contacted Fight Finder we believe in an attempt to get validation on one of his creations. The beverage dispenser maker, which has never been available for purchase even though his own site has the costs listed, is a bit verbose. While his email to us was not nearly as exhausting, his Newsletter section that functions more like a blog to get thoughts out has more than enough madness to review.

Again, what does this guy have to do with Sherdog or mixed martial arts? This crackpot creator designed one of his pieces around a UFC Octagon and a particular fighter in the late Evan Tanner—whose name he repeatedly spelled wrong. He provided a picture where he wore one of his drink carriers standing alongside Tanner doing the fist pose, as well as a number of mockups of the design including a fighter that suspiciously looked a lot like the former middleweight champ.

The most important text may be this: “To avoid any and all lawsuits against me pertaining to the unwarranted and unauthorized use of Mr. Evan Tanners’ name and likeness, association with the Tanner Family, www.MTV.com, www.SPIKE.com, the UFC, the WEC and all other affiliations throughout the universe I am forced to rename my handcrafted RoFo BevDisHeadgear beverage dispenser prototype from its original chosen title/s: RoFo Evan Tanner Commemorative BevDisHeadgear beverage dispenser, and/or the RoFo Evan Tanner Award BevDisHeadgear beverage dispenser to the lesser obvious and lesser controversial combative generic title; RoFo Mixed Fighting Arts Competitor BevDisHeadgear beverage dispenser.”

I want one almost as badly as I want a UFC hot dog brander.

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How can the Flann man possibly be followed by anything else? We stick to sports, specifically turning our gaze to a former American who renounced his citizenship to hang out with Vladimir Putin. Of course, we mean north-south submission wizard Jeff Monson, who at the tender age of 53 thought it would be prudent to enter into another MMA match of sorts. With comrade Monson currently a representative of a regional Russian government, any fight involving him should be taken with a grain of salt, and maybe some baby aspirin as it’s supposed to be good for the heart.

What happened was hardly surprising. The complete fight video from the Top Fight Global Pop MMA league has been removed, and it has been edited down from a 3x5 draw to about four minutes of cage time if one can call it that. With this org operating on the fringes of the sport, they freely goofed off and changed the rules of engagement. You can see in that video when Monson has his patented north-south locked in, grappling time runs out and the ref stands them up moments before a tap would likely come. As it turned out, it was planned ahead of time that the fight would a) be not hard-fought to international standards and 2) end as a draw even if that meant willful referee negligence.

Normally, when there are concerns about fight fixing, we have to do a lot of digging and discussing and occasionally frame-by-frame analysis to get to the bottom of an investigation. This was not one of those instances, because the promoter contacted us directly about this event, providing the results including a headlining match faker than a three-dollar bill. Don’t trust our judgment? Read what the organizer actually admitted to Sherdog Fight Finder, slightly edited for clarity.

“Please delete the Jeff Monson fight. It was a show fight, the punches were not real.”

“Well, we didn’t just want to bring in Jeff Monson. We promised him that this draw would not be included in the statistics.”

“I only wanted to manipulate Monson’s record, because I promised him that the fights would not get into the record.”

“We asked Monson to perform for the show. Look at the cuts. The blows were not real. This fight must be eliminated.”

He broke the rules. Every federation or commission’s policy state quite clearly that all results will be null and void if this type of thing happens. You can read it for yourself. “I, the undersigned, shall forfeit all rights, privileges and licenses herein and herein contained, et cetera, et cetera…fax mentis incendium gloria cultum, et cetera, et cetera, memo bis punitor delicatum.” It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal. They arranged fixed fights. They wasted time in a cage which now has to be washed and sterilized, so they get nothing. You lose! Good day, sir!.

If you have something fight related that you think will wow us, pass it along to [email protected]. We’ll gladly give you credit if you wish. I said good day!