By FCF Staff

Recently World Series of Fighting made headlines by announcing that it’s expanding its operations into Canada, and that it will hold an event in Vancouver, British Columbia on December 7th. In the official announcement confirming the move, the Las Vegas based organization relayed that it “has acquired Canada’s top MMA promotion, Aggression Fighting Championship, and will launch World Series of Fighting Canada.” While the deal signals an interesting decision from WSOF to enter the Canadian MMA market, there have been conflicting reports as to whether the AFC was purchased, or what facilitated the agreement.

After the WSOF’s deal with the AFC was initially reported by Bleacher Report, the Canadian based Top MMA News relayed that according to its sources, no purchase took place. Instead, the report furthered, AFC was closing its doors and its executives were joining WSOF Canada.

When the WSOF made it’s official announcement, it included quotes from Steve Fader and Darren Owen, who were referred to as WSOF Canada’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer respectively. Fader and Owen were two of the founders for the AFC, which was born in 2012, after the Canadian promotions AX Combat, Armageddon Fighting Championship and Aggression MMA merged. Owen was a co-founder with Armageddon, and Fader was a co-founder with AX Combat.

In Full Contact Fighter’s efforts to clarify whether the AFC has been bought, we attempted to contact officials with WSOF and WSOF Canada. These attempts were unsuccessful, except for an email response from a WSOF representative, who said they did not “have anything more to say about the deal than what’s already been announced/written in the release.”

FCF was able to get a hold of Armageddon FC co-founder Jason Heit, however, who relayed he had not been informed about any purchase of Aggression Fighting Championship. The fighter, instructor and promoter stated:

“The facts are that Armageddon Fighting Championships has been around since 2007; I’m the one that registered the company and Darren Owen and I are the ones who built the company,” said Heit. “It’s common knowledge that the three companies, AX, Aggression and Armageddon came together under the Aggression banner, and like I say, I found this out through the media.”

“Nobody’s contacted me about this,” added Heit, who says he remains a part owner of Armageddon FC. “It’s quite confusing to me. Like I say, I haven’t packed up shop.”

WSOF Canada’s first event will be hosted by the PNE Agrodome in Vancouver, and will feature Anthony Johnson taking on light-heavyweight Mike Kyle in the main event. The card will also include a middleweight tourney semifinal between Elvis Mutapcic and Jesse Taylor.

In the initial announcement regarding WSOF Canada, the promotion relayed it plans to promote events nationwide in the future.  Aggression Fighting Championship’s last event took place this past July in Calgary.  After it’s creation in 2012, the promotion went on to hold events in several other Canadian cities as well, including Victoria, Edmonton and Winnipeg.