So about that GFL draft…

The GFL – MMA’s newest headline-grabbing fight promotion – had a “draft” on Friday. If you didn’t watch the nearly three-hour livestream, here’s what you missed:

– The show opened by using the dark magic of AI to create unsettling images of well-known fighters posing in Game of Thrones-esque armor, all set to a rap song about fighting.

– The hosts, including former UFC commentator Mike Goldberg, then talked us through the draft process just before a graphic on screen seemed to accidentally reveal that the teams had already been decided before the draft even began.

– We heard from various team managers and coaches, including Luke Barnatt, who appeared to be challenging all of us to a game of chess.

– By the end, team rosters had been set for Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Sao Paulo, Dubai, and London, even if at least one fighter – former UFC champ Rashad Evans – would later claim that he was drafted “without [his] consent” and had no plans to participate.

In other words, it was kind of a mess. Amid sweeping, hyperbolic claims about changing MMA forever with this visionary approach were a lot of little reminders that the GFL is actually very new to this and seemingly figuring it out on the fly.

To be clear, being a bit of a mess as a new MMA organization isn’t necessarily the worst thing. Messes can be fun, or at least interesting. We slow down to gawk at messes on the side of the road. In a space where the first big challenge is drawing eyeballs and making people aware that your product even exists, there are worse things to be than a big, loud trainwreck.

But eventually comes the part where you have to put on some fights. And the roster that the GFL has assembled for that purpose is … I guess the kind way to put it would be to say “experienced.”

Team Los Angeles has two 45-year-old heavyweights (Frank Mir and Andrei Arlovski), plus a lightweight who holds the record for the longest losing streak in UFC history (Tony Ferguson, who exited the UFC after eight straight defeats).

Team Dubai used the first overall “pick” to select 42-year-old Tyron Woodley, then later circled back to get two middleweights (Derek Brunson and Luke Rockhold) who are old enough to have fought on the Strikeforce Challengers series.

Team New York has Chris Weidman, who just announced his retirement earlier this month, as well as Aleksei Oleinik, who made his professional MMA debut in 1996, right around the time of UFC 9.

Fabricio Werdum of Team Sao Paulo will turn 48 this summer, and according to a declaration he provided as part of the UFC antitrust lawsuit has been dealing with an inoperable brain cyst along with what he described as “symptoms common with TBI and CTE including irritability, anger, anxiety, insomnia and memory loss.”

These fighters are all recognizable names for fight fans, which is the point. But grouped together like this they amount to something like an MMA seniors tour. The one thing they seem to agree on is that GFL offered them the kind of money they simply couldn’t pass up, so here they are.

Is there a place for this in the MMA ecosystem? Maybe. If the age of influencer boxing has proven anything it’s that name recognition is far more important than the ability to put on high-level fights. Then again, for those of us who had a good view of the last time this team approach to MMA failed with the IFL, it does seem like the GFL is committed to learning absolutely nothing from the lessons of the past – right down to the rap song.

Say this for the GFL, it has gotten us to think about it an awful lot for a company that has yet to put on a single event. That’s impressive, in a way. It’s something. Now it just has to do something with that first event that will help ensure there’s a second and a third. That’s where it gets tricky. Because while we might slow down to look at a wreck, it doesn’t mean we want to stop there.