MLW star and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner Dominic Garrini recently spoke to Fightful to promote this week’s special “Filthy Island” edition of Fusion. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says he wasn’t a fan of UFC’s Fight Island concept:
“I will never forget being so upset in those initial Fight Island promos and teasers that the UFC put out, the Octagon’s out there on the beach, and you’re like, ‘Okay, this is going to be awesome. They’re going to fight on the beach.’ You’re like, ‘This is going to look so cool.’ Even I talked with, I think (Tony) Deppen about it—him and I got into a Twitter thread about it—about how it’s going to be cool, but it’s going to be terrible for the fighters. It’s going to be so hot out. Then I turn on the prelims and they’re in an arena. I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ Then it was like, holy shit. They sold such a fake bill of goods to sell these pay-per-views and everybody bought it. I was like, ‘Ugh.’ That was how they sold it. I’m telling you, there’s not a single idea behind that marketing department that didn’t put that picture out on, I think it was Wednesday of the week of the fights and didn’t say, ‘This is how we’re going to sell this pay-per-view, no matter what.’. They were going to do a good number of buys just based on the strength of the card. But, like, the amount of curiosity buys they got, I’m sure, on ESPN+ just for, “Is this really happening on an island? Are they really doing this on a beach?” Then of course it’s like, “Aw.” Was definitely a high number.”
How they came up with “Filthy Island” for MLW:
“I think that Court and I had talked at that point and we were kinda like, ‘We don’t want to sell a fake bill of goods. This show needs to be outdoors and it needs to have that authentic island feel.’ So, like if anything you could say about the Fight Island UFC stuff, that’s the problem with it. Everything that goes along with the Fight Island stuff in the UFC has been awesome, all the Conor McGregor coming to the Octagon and Khabib coming to the arena, it looks so cool. Especially with how everything is so sequestered right now with COVID. Seeing Conor roll up to Etihad Arena in the fucking Rolls-Royce was so cool. So, it’s like, taking bits and pieces of that next to the actual aesthetics of the island.”
Says MLW has a great team, especially in the graphics department:
“I think one thing that MLW does so well, is that they have such a good graphics team and they have a team that works so hard on making the show look beautiful. So, I think that was definitely a slam dunk for that. I know that Tom and I had talked about the Filth Island idea along with Court and we really liked the idea of it, and then it kind of worked all together with the idea of how we brought Kevin (Ku) in, how I was lost in Brazil and I found Kevin in the jungle. So, it almost worked even better with all that.”