All Four POGA Champs Skip Title Defense

The Premier Open Grappling Alliance (POGA) announced this week that all four of its reigning division champions—the heavyweight, light heavyweight, middleweight, and lightweight titleholders—have declined to defend their titles at the POGA World Invitational, scheduled for September 15 at the Millbrook Convention Center in Millbrook, Pennsylvania. POGA CEO Derek Richardson, 33, revealed the news during a Tuesday morning press conference, noting that the athletes had each told POGA separately of their unavailability despite the entire championship structure being organized around their division brackets. “These are our champions,” Richardson said, gesturing at an oversized POGA banner behind him. “And we’re thrilled to welcome the next generation of champions, who will also presumably have scheduling conflicts next year.” The championship costs $249 to enter, and had been promoted across social media as offering “the opportunity to face the world’s best in one decisive tournament.” The event projected an attendance of 8,200 athletes, with POGA allocating $47,000 in total prize money: $8,000 for first place, $4,000 for second, and $2,000 for third. The announcement that the four athletes most likely to compete at the highest level had decided to skip the event created an immediate problem: POGA’s marketing had promised you’d face “the world’s best”—meaning their reigning champions—and that promise just evaporated. The defending champions didn’t tell POGA until the board meeting on August 30, leaving weeks of promos, 18,000 emails, and three regional qualifiers promoting “the chance to face defending champions.” It was now a lie. Richardson acknowledged the timeline but reframed it as beneficial: “We’ve actually kept the surprise element alive. Nobody knows who will show up to fight.” The heavyweight champion, Marcus Donovan, 31, a software engineer from Pittsburgh and four-time POGA gold medalist, was contractually obligated to compete in the International Grappling Series championship on September 13 and 14 in Maryland. Donovan had signed a two-year exclusive sponsorship agreement with IGS that explicitly forbade competing in other organizations’ championships during the term. “I love POGA,” Donovan said via email. “I helped build POGA. But IGS is paying me to be exclusive to IGS, so I can’t compete for POGA. I hope that makes sense.” It did. It also meant POGA had lost its own athlete to a rival organization at a rival championship the same weekend. The light heavyweight champion, Kevin Patterson, 29, blamed a shoulder injury from three weeks ago. He claimed the injury was “not serious but serious enough to not risk competing at a championship level.” That week, Patterson posted Instagram videos of leg-lock seminars, gym seminars, and a judo throw titled “shoulder mobility check—full range.” His gym’s open-mat schedule listed him as the featured instructor for Saturday open mat, the day before the championship. When asked to clarify, Patterson didn’t respond. His Instagram story on August 31 showed him attempting a 285-pound bench press with the caption “upper body day never stops, baby.” The middleweight champion, Diego Morales, 27, took the head coaching job at Pinnacle Grappling Collective, a newly opened academy in Millbrook. Starting September 14. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to build a program from scratch,” Morales said in a written statement. “Defending a title I’m not getting paid for didn’t make sense when I have a start date that day.” His contract with Pinnacle included a $12,000 signing bonus, benefits, and a 40-hour-per-week coaching schedule—significantly more valuable than the $8,000 first-place prize that POGA offered. Morales had won three straight POGA titles. He didn’t attend the press conference, but POGA’s event coordinator confirmed he’d requested his name removed from the champion bracket on August 29. The lightweight champion’s withdrawal came with conditions. The athlete, whose name was withheld from the official announcement due to ongoing sponsorship negotiations, had requested that POGA increase the champion purse from $8,000 to $25,000 before he’d commit to defending. POGA declined the request. The athlete responded by declining the event. “He said if the prize money doesn’t reflect the value of being our champion, why should he treat it like he is,” Richardson explained. “We told him the purse is what the purse is. And now he’s competing in a different organization. So that’s where we are.” POGA’s official statement, released the morning after the press conference, read: “The POGA World Invitational remains the premier destination for grappling athletes worldwide. The organization is excited to welcome thousands of competitors ready to prove themselves on the biggest stage. The absence of defending champions provides an opportunity for rising athletes to showcase their potential.” Richardson added in a separate comment: “The integrity of the competition is maintained through the strength of POGA’s depth of talent.” When asked if the absence of defending champions from a “world championship” event created a credibility gap, Richardson paused for eight seconds. “That’s more of a marketing question,” he finally said. “Next question.” POGA subsequently promoted the four number-two-ranked competitors in each division to the title-defense slots. But three of them were already booked for other tournaments: the International Grappling Series (September 13 in Maryland), the regional no-gi championships (September 14–15 in Ohio), and one athlete’s volunteer coaching obligations at his gym’s gi-only promotion event. The fourth number-two-ranked competitor, a 26-year-old named Caleb Hines, took the promotion and began training for the championship. Hines, a purple belt from outside Philadelphia, had never finished higher than third at a POGA event. He learned he’d defend a title when he scrolled POGA’s website the morning the announcement went live. “I guess I’m a title contender now?” he said in a text to his training group. His gym awarded him a $50 gift card toward tournament entry fees. His first opponent, brown belt Shelby Russo, who’d beaten Hines twice before, didn’t find out about the change until registration opened. The championship went on as planned. POGA’s marketing team, however, updated the hashtag from #POGAChampions2026 to #POGAChampionshipTournament2026—quietly dropping “Champions.” When Richardson was asked if he anticipated this same scenario next year, he smiled without answering. POGA’s next meeting: September 16, the day after it all wrapped up.