Midwest Fight News: Shofight Promoter JT Tilley blasted by Branson Newspaper for UNFAIR judging practices at Shofight events

Article featured in Branson Newspaper exposing bogus Shofight judging practices.

As many of you fight fans in the Southwest Missouri area may know fight promoter and CEO of Shofight Mixed Martial Arts JT Tilley has been under major scrutiny in recent weeks following the exposure of many questionable business practices including unfair matchups, preferential treatment of his own fight team, failure to help injured fighters with insurance, biased judges and referees and more including scamming a springfield business man for well over $200,000.

JT Tilley is well known for his political acumen and is a master of spinning stories that make his deceptive practices sound like he is doing everyone a favor by lying to them. In a recent facebook post JT Tilley announced that he had fabricated a false identity to trick fighters that wouldn't compete for the Shofight brand to fight for a "new promotion" called "Brawl Inc."

JT Tilley created a fake online profile under the name "Dan Jenks" and contacted members of the MMA Community to compete for this imaginary promoter at this new event. It has also been reported that the creation of the new promotion and fake identity was to avoid paying his investor and partner in the Shofight brand.

Here is the post as it was written by JT Tilley on his facebook profile. This post was written to preempt the already embarrassing information coming to light about his deceptive practices. Knowing that somone would "call him out" for his lies, JT Tilley created the following post as a way to soften the blow when everyone found out that he created the false identity and operated a fight promotion under the fake name.

From the facebook profile of JT Tilley (Tuesday, August 5th 10:55pm):

ATTENTION FIGHT FANS: Back in July of 2012, a few friends and I conceived a plan to start a true amateur fight league, a place where inexperienced fighters and fighters with no immediate plans to go pro could compete without worrying about facing unfair competition. A organization where the politics of the sport were not present, and where veteran fighters with mixed records could be rewarded for their tenure rather than be matched up with undefeated veterans just because of their experience level. A completely neutral organization exempt from the usual sour grapes and drama that we have experienced many times while promoting ShoFIGHT.

In September of 2012 , BRAWL INC. - MMA Cage Fighting was created to serve that purpose. We also decided to create 'Dan Jenks' to represent the brand and arrange the cards for us so that we could avoid any political pitfalls while building the promotion..."

The post goes on to say that the first three Brawl Inc. cards were a huge success which is yet another lie. On June 1st the event was held with only 8 bouts on the fight card. As it turns out creating a false identity didn't really help with building a quality fight card.

The article also names Michael Dreisbach, the owner of Bout Management Federation and Becky Brown, Bout Management Sanctioning Representative that oversees ShoFIGHT events as his partners and accomplices in facilitating this lie to the MMA Community.

The bottom line is that this internet posting uses flowery language to spin a delightful tale of why JT Tilley lied to all of us and attempted to deceive the fighters and coaches of Southwest Missouri. In a recent comment it was said that "everyone knew it was me anyway". Well, if Mr. JT Tilley believed everyone knew it was him anyway why did he feel the need to officially inform all of us about the deception? This is a cover-up tactic commonly used by dirty politicians to cover their tracks in a scandal. Notice that he also named a few other people in the post to lend credibility to the fabrication, another tactic used in deceptive politics.

In addition to operating a fight promotion under a false identity, JT Tilley has also been accused by several prominent members of the MMA Community of unfair judging practices at his shows. Branson Tri Lakes Newspaper Sports Editor Pat Dailey had the following to say about the judging practices at ShoFIGHT as the decisions are often unfairly rendered in the favor of JT Tilley's own fighters from his Branson Fight Club. This unfair practice of stealing wins from other fighters is detrimental to those fighters that are trying to establish themselves as they climb the ladder to becoming pro fighters. Hardly the actions of a promoter who claims to care about the fighters that compete at his events.

"MMA's future locally could be in judges' hands" by Pat Dailey (edited for length, full article available in image posted below directly from the Tri-Lakes Newspaper)

..."following my core fundamentals to tell it like it is, I can't see how Foust won. Matter of fact, in a 10 point must system, there's no possible way he did win by the 117-114 count that was announced. Do the math and the judges scorecards for the four-round fight can't add up to 117-114...

... I've never met Breeden and only remember seeing him fight once before. Still, I felt much worse for Breeden than joy for Foust. Breeden initially raised his hands and then dropped them as the judges' decision was announced. He, too, was a class act, showing incredible sportsmanship after being robbed..."

Pat Dailey who is a long time fan of MMA here in Southwest Missouri said that the constant unfair decisions and other issues were enough cause for the Branson Tri-Lakes News to stop covering the events entirely.

JT Tilley is notorious for using forms of media that he can control to report on his events. Branson Tri-Lakes Newswpaper was the only local non-biased news source covering his events. JT Tilleys latest media creation is Jim Baker, a local friend of the fight promoter who JT Tilley uses to publish favorable articles about his promotion to refute accusations from the MMA Community. In a recent article JT Tilley used his reporter to write an article covering his tracks for cheating a springfield business owner out of more than $200,000.

In the article JT Tilley attempts to explain how someone else who is not an owner of the ShoFight organization was somehow responsible for paying the pro fighters who participated in ShoFIGHT 20. The unanswered question is why someone would invest more than $200,000 in a fight promotion without being an owner of the company. The answer is that JT Tilley cheated this individual out of his ownership interest in the company following the ShoFIGHT 20 event. Anyone with a logical mind knows that an investor doesn't invest that kind of money without expecting something in return in the form of money or ownership, neither of which were furnished by JT Tilley.

Several people have questioned why Branson Fight Club MMA Fighter Chris McDaniel is the acting referee for his own students and teammates at the promotion. Chris McDaniel has refereed other shows in addition to Shofight and no complaints have ever been made. It seems however that spectators at Shofight have seen preferential treatment toward Branson Fight Club fighters when Chris McDaniels is the official for his own team mates.

Professional MMA Fighter Josh Downing was an eye witness to such an event and had this to say about the unfair reffing practices at the most recent of JT's events on July 20th, 2013. Two of JT's Branson Fight Club "Champions" were given matches against underqualified fighters. When one of those fights backfired and the underdog was winning this is what happened:

"...I went to JTs last show and was reminded why I never go. Most of the fights were stacked in one way or the other. There were guys that fought that have clearly never trained legitimately. But the worst was Chris McDaniel's "refereeing". He let a couple fights go on way to long. There was a fighter that was fighting a BFC guy that could barely stand and McDaniel let it go on and on, and just let the guy get shelled. Then in the female title fight, he took points away from the challenger from out of town for reasons that aren't against the rules. One was for her kicking Courtney in the knee which isn't illegal. Then one was a groin shot which is illegal, but he gave Courtney time to recover after both shots. Then Courtney accidentally poked her in the eye, which was obvious to everyone in the crowd, and McDaniel never intervened. Some of the worst refereeing I have ever seen."
Last but not least it has been brought to light that Anthony Lupica, a contestant at ShoFIGHT 13 on October 29, 2011 who received serious injuries during his fight did not receive medical coverage for his injuries. Lupica suffered the loss of his front teeth during the fight. Fighters normally receive a minimum of $5,000 in medical coverage as required by state law during an MMA Bout. It is very difficult to understand why a fighters injuries were not covered if in fact there was proper insurance in place for the event. Lupica's Coach JD Hunter (head MMA coach at Barry County Fight Club) has stated that JT Tilley has been completely unwilling to help Anthony get his medical expenses covered or re-cooperated in the nearly two years since the fight. Once again, hardly the actions of a promoter that claims to 'care about fighters'.

The coming weeks should be entertaining as more information surfaces about this shady fight promoter who calls himself JT Tilley or Dan Jenks but whose real name is Jerad Marshall Tilley... Stay Tuned!

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