AXS TV Ends Broadcast Deal With Legacy Fighting Alliance

AXS TV Fights? #LFA76 pic.twitter.com/BrEULiXV4I

— Ron Kruck (@rkruck) September 13, 2019

It is a sad day in the sport, as AXS TV will be hosting its final Legacy Fighting Alliance event on Friday.

According to a network executive on Friday, AXS TV has announced it will end its broadcasting arrangement with the LFA, thereby cancelling any future cards on the network. While this deal will no longer be in place, the network has not stated that it will be out of the MMA business permanently. Prior to this announcement, members of the AXS TV broadcast team including Ron Kruck and Phoenix Carnevale stated on social media that they were no longer with the company.

The statement from AXS TV in its entirety reads:

We are confirming AXS TV has advised LFA that it is cancelling its participation in the balance of LFA events scheduled for 2019. Anthem was founded on the acquisition of Fight Network in 2010, the world’s leading combat sports channel, and is committed to the legacy of combat sports on AXS TV.

AXS TV, formerly known as HDNet, has put on hundreds of MMA and kickboxing events for a plethora of organizations including World Extreme Cagefighting, Dream, Sengoku, CES MMA, K-1 and many others. The loss of LFA programming will leave the network without any MMA coverage for the time being. The final LFA event on the channel will be LFA 76, headlined by a lightweight battle between Trey Ogden and Nick Browne.

LFA was created in a merger between Legacy Fighting Championship and Resurrection Fighting Alliance in 2016. The two organizations first floated the idea to work in tandem when they held a joint event on May 2015, titled "AXS TV Fights - RFA vs. Legacy Superfight." At that card, the flyweight champions of the two companies, Alexandre Pantoja for the RFA and Damacio Page of Legacy, competed for the AXS TV Superfight Championship. Pantoja put Page to sleep with a triangle choke to win that belt.

At the conclusion of LFA 76, the promotion will have put on 659 fights spanning 77 events in 32 months on AXS TV. Throughout Dana White's Contender Series history, more contract winners previously competed in the LFA than any other promotion. LFA presumably will not shutter following this news, although the future is currently unclear for the Texas-based promotion, as it has several upcoming events scheduled throughout the months of September and October.