NEWARK, NJ — Devlin Ouellette, 51-year-old founder of the Ironbound Grappling Invitational (IGI), announced Wednesday that the promotion’s upcoming August card will be its final event for the fourth consecutive year.
“This is really the last one,” Ouellette told reporters at Tuesday’s press conference, wearing the same “LAST IGI” t-shirt he designed for the 2023 event, the 2024 event, and the 2025 event. “I mean it this time. I’m done. The sport is done. This is the goodbye.”
Tickets sold out in 94 seconds.
A leaked Shopify log from the IGI website, provided by a former staffer named Maris Flagg, shows that 73% of Wednesday’s ticket buyers also bought tickets to the 2023 “final” event, the 2024 “final” event, and the 2025 “final” event. The top individual purchaser, a 38-year-old orthodontist from Bloomfield named Patrick Sweeney, has now personally bought 19 “LAST IGI” tickets across four years.
“At some point you just sort of accept it,” Sweeney said. “He’s going to keep saying it’s the last one. I’m going to keep showing up. It’s our thing.”
The budget deck, which a disgruntled former matchmaker named Ennis Brandt-Howard provided to anyone who asked over two Rolling Rocks at the Belmar Tap House, shows a $240,000 loss on the 2025 “final” event and a projected $310,000 loss on this year’s. The Q3 projection slide is titled “Final Financials” in 72-point bold. Brandt-Howard confirmed the same slide appeared in the 2024 deck, the 2023 deck, and, as far as he could tell from archived PDFs, the 2019 mid-season refresh.
“It was called ‘Final Financials’ when the promotion was still profitable,” Brandt-Howard said.
The August card features six athletes Ouellette personally called at 2 a.m. the Monday after the booking deadline, according to phone logs circulated on the group chat of Crownside Grappling in Jersey City. Four of the six have competed on every previous “final” IGI card. One, Thiago Bramante, a 34-year-old brown belt from São Caetano do Sul, was told in 2023 that his match would be “a retirement gift to the sport,” in 2024 that it would be “the one that closes the book,” and in 2025 that it would be “the last one, for real, I mean it.” He is competing again this August.
“He told me this one is actually the last one,” Bramante said through his training partner, who served as translator. “I said, ‘Devlin, you said this before.’ He said, ‘I know, but this time is different.’ I asked what is different. He said, ‘Everything.’ I asked him to be specific. He walked into another room.”
The commentary team includes Donny Pellegrine, a 44-year-old former welterweight who headlined the first-ever IGI in 2012 and has called every card since. Pellegrine, 14 years removed from his last competitive match, continues to pronounce “kneebar” as “kneeber,” a pronunciation his booth partner has corrected on air at least 40 times over seven years. Pellegrine has not updated.
Ouellette has already registered three additional promotion names with the New Jersey Division of Revenue: IGI: Legends Return, IGI: Origins, and IGI: The Real Final Event. All three are scheduled for 2027, according to filings date-stamped Jan 14. A fourth name, IGI: The Last Dance, was filed, withdrawn, and re-filed twice in March.
The $120 ticket laminate is printed with the words “thank you for witnessing history.” The same phrase appears on the 2023 laminate, the 2024 laminate, and the 2025 laminate. A lanyard invoice from Hackensack Print Works, obtained via a records request, shows Ouellette has ordered exactly 1,200 units with that wording every year since 2022. The invoice line item reads “annual reprint, LAST IGI commemorative lanyard, same plate, do not change.”
“Exact same energy as last year’s final event and the one before that,” said Colby Kwan, 42, a South Orange resident who has attended every IGI since 2014. Kwan described the opening video package as “the exact same orchestral rip, exact same slow-motion walk-in of Devlin through the curtain, exact same ‘this is the end, but also it was the beginning’ voiceover.” Kwan was asked if he would return in 2027 for IGI: The Real Final Event. He said yes.
Ouellette’s wife Cara has stopped attending. Sources close to the family say she stopped in late 2024, after that year’s closing ceremony in which Ouellette, microphone in hand, tearfully thanked her “for supporting me through this final chapter” for the third consecutive summer. Cara was seen that night eating dinner alone at an Italian restaurant two blocks from the venue.
Their oldest son, Declan Ouellette, 19, has for the past two years operated an Etsy storefront under the pseudonym “EastCoastGrappleShop,” selling bootleg “LAST IGI” hoodies, keychains, and one successful line of “FINAL FINAL IGI” dad hats. Declan’s store has outsold the official IGI merch booth two years running. His gross revenue from the 2025 event alone was $41,200. He invoices his father’s promotion nothing and pays no royalties.
Devlin Ouellette is aware of the Etsy store. He has been aware since November 2024, when a gym cousin forwarded him a link. He has not addressed it. He did not address it in the annual family Thanksgiving toast, at which he once again thanked his son for “being the reason I keep doing this.” Declan, seated at the table, nodded and continued eating.
In a post-press-conference interview, Ouellette was asked whether there was any scenario in which IGI would not return in 2027. He paused for a long time. Then he said, “Well, if the sport doesn’t need me.”
The sport has not yet been reached for comment.