MFC’s Mark Pavelich: Megalomaniac or Misunderstood?

Mark Pavelich: Megalomaniac or Misunderstood?

Maximum Fighting Championship president Mark Pavelich is a polarizing figure in mixed martial arts. Not unlike his UFC counterpart Dana White, Pavelich is either loved or hated, but very seldom both.

If you ask fighters like Drew Fickett or Ryan Ford, they will share unsavoury opinions about the man who verbally slammed them when each fighter acted in a manner displeasing to the Edmonton-based promoter.

Chris Price most likely has few positives to offer about Pavelich and the MFC as well, considering that the promotion’s website posted an article airing Price’s personal issues earlier in the year when the American was unable to secure entry into Alberta for his fight at MFC 24. Pavelich’s response was that he doesn’t read 90-percent of the material posted on his company’s website.

There is the other side of the coin as well. Many in Edmonton and around the MMA world speak highly of Pavelich, who has built the MFC into Canada’s premier organization and one of the Top 5 companies in North America on his own.

So which one is it – megalomaniac or misunderstood? Pavelich doesn’t understand why there is even a question to be asked in the first place.

“What is it about me?” asked the MFC president when questioned about frequently finding himself in the midst of verbal battles in the MMA community. “Do I come off like a douchebag or something?”

You be the judge.

In recent months, Pavelich caught the eye of MMA news hounds for his comments regarding both Bellator and the WEC. Speaking with Evan Shoman and “Crooklyn” on Tapout Radio, Pavelich offered the following assessment of Bellator’s foray into the mixed martial arts industry:

“I don’t like it. I don’t watch it. I don’t know anybody that does watch it…they are going to be the pet rock, the rubix cube [of MMA.] They are just not any kind of… I can’t name even five people on the fighter roster.”

The ante was upped with Reed Harris and the WEC, who are bringing a show to Edmonton’s Rexall Place later this summer.

While doing press for WEC 49, Harris offered the analogy that the currently available MMA in Edmonton and the product the WEC offers is like “seeing a high school basketball game and then going to an NBA game.”

Pavelich offered up his thoughts on Harris’s comments in a video blog following MFC 25, saying he “never really looked at [Harris] as really being relevant,” adding that he thought “[UFC President] Dana [White] held his hand and told him where to go pee.”

Having achieved a great deal of local success and growing into a recognizable brand within the MMA community, why wouldn’t Pavelich simply shake his head and let Harris’s comments slide?

“You can’t let people do that,” answered Pavelich when asked just that. To the Edmonton-based businessman, it’s about getting recognition for what he’s done; he takes offense to Harris coming into his backyard and disregarding the accomplishments and presence of the MFC in Edmonton.

But turning the other cheek also isn’t Pavelich’s style, as he admitted both in our interview and the video blog where he first responded to Harris’s comments.

“I never throw the first stone, but I always pick it up and throw it back,” offered the MFC president in a gross understatement. What Pavelich does – and what could be part of the reason for the mixed opinions about him – is take things to the next level and the schoolyard all at once.

While Harris’s assessment of the MFC as equivalent to high school basketball could be construed as bad form, Pavelich’s video retaliation, complete with calling Harris an imbecile and suggesting he get his head out of his ass, is both an escalation of a minor slight and juvenile at the same time.

He could have just as easily offered a tactful and politically correct response to Harris’s comments, but that’s not how Mark Pavelich rolls, as he made clear to “all the nuthuggers on The Underground and everyone else” at the close of his video rebuttal.

One other thing struck me in speaking with Pavelich and researching this piece, and that is his refusal to mention any other organization or promoter by name. Even in speaking about the back-and-forth between he and Harris, the MFC president would not utter the letters “WEC,” and referred to the UFC as “that show in Las Vegas” whenever the biggest brand in the sport came up in the conversation.

Not talking up the competition is one thing, but failing to even address the big, pink elephant in the room is another matter entirely, and one that could contribute to some people’s perception of Pavelich as egotistical and off-putting.

Admittedly, Pavelich gets a bit of a raw deal within the media. Each of his outbursts are treated as another example of the loose cannon Canadian who has too much to say, while Dana White’s repeated negative comments about Strikeforce or his constant barrage of F-bombs are viewed as “Dana being Dana.”

But just when you think you’re being too hard on the MFC President, he offers another reason to shake your head in amazement.

Following the UFC’s introduction of Tom Wright as the head of the newly-created UFC Canada office, Pavelich opined on the situation via his Facebook account:

“If anyone is stupid enough to think what DW did in Toronto today is going to speed up sanctioning you’re kidding yourself. I grew up in Ontario, Canada and trust me when I tell you, they move at there own pace and could care less if someone opens an office or not. I could bet anyone that Mr. Hayashi and Premiere Mr. Dalton McGuinty took great offense today and took it as a bulling tactic and it will only slow down the process. Also to hire an X CFL commissioner that knows zero about MMA makes very little sense but what do I know, I’ve only been in the MMA business for 11 years and only own the biggest show in the country. I can go to bed now, I said it.”

While Pavelich may very well be right in his assessment of the impact opening a UFC office in Toronto, all that is lost in the spelling mistakes and search for recognition of what he’s accomplished to date.

So which one is it – is MFC president Mark Pavelich a megalomaniac or simply misunderstood?

Ultimately, it’s a matter of opinion. You’re either with him or against him, and the choice is yours.

But if you’re against him, keep it to yourself or you might end up on the receiving end of another infamous Mark Pavelich verbal counter-punch.

**Correction: Reed Harris didn’t say the MFC is like watching high school basketball . He said MMA in Edmonton is like watching high school basketball without knowing the MFC is in Edmonton.