Days after FloSports announced a new free channel on Amazon Prime Video promising over 300 premium live events and more than 1,000 hours of programming, FloGrappling’s General Manager took to Reddit to address why the platform’s flagship WNO series has effectively stopped running.
While many in the Jiu-Jitsu community assumed the silence was connected to FloGrappling’s recent partnership with ONE Championship, the explanation turned out to be broader, touching on scheduling pressures and a shifting motivational landscape among top competitors.
Ben Kovacs, who runs FloGrappling and also founded the Guardian Jiu-Jitsu nonprofit, responded under his Reddit handle DaddyGrapple to a thread titled “What happened to FLO WNO?”
The post had noted that no event had been scheduled since the end of March and questioned whether UFC BJJ and ONE Championship had pulled in all the available talent.
Kovacs pointed first to an overcrowded calendar:
Main reason is it’s an ADCC year plus now having Polaris and BJJ Stars.
One of the biggest challenges right now is that there are so many different promotions out there, making it challenging to get many of the best stars into one single event…
A few years ago, Flo could put on an event and have Gordon, Routolos, Mica, Jozef, etc. on one card.This is not possible anymore without spending CJI money once a year, and even Craig can’t get all the best athletes because of the exclusivity required by many organizations.
He then went further, arguing that elite grapplers today are simply motivated differently than they used to be:
A lot of the best guys now in the world are not necessarily motivated the same way as they once were.
Look at Tainan for example… Super smart guy, makes a ton of money at the gym and values teaching kids a lot and winning IBJJF grand slams…
Jozef has publicly said he doesn’t love competing that much. Levi prefers not to come to US to compete. Baby Shark is exclusive. Mica obviously dealing with some larger life things this year.So while not impossible, it’s not always easy to motivate with a little extra money like it was just a few years ago in many cases.
The top guys have found new ways to make a living, developed new hobbies outside of BJJ and become more selective.