Impact Fighting Championships (Impact FC) was an Australian mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion. The promotion held two of three planned events in July 2010[1] featuring veteran fighters of Ultimate Fighting Championship and Pride Fighting Championships. Impact FC was financed by Australian concert promoter Andrew McManus[2] and created, organized, and produced by Brazilian promoter Tom Huggins,[3] who helped promote Elite Xtreme Combat, Extreme Cagefighting, Bitetti Combat, and many other MMA events.[4]
The promoters planned to put on three events in a single month in order gauge the interest of Australian fans to mixed martial arts.[1] The first event, held on 10 July 2010 was expected to have a crowd over 1000 in the arena and be broadcast to a world-wide audience of 2.5 million.[3] Following the second event controversy arose over payments to the fighters participating in the event.[5] The fighters had left the arena following the show and traveled home without being paid for the event, going against many boxing and MMA commissions rules, though Thomas Huggins did directly contact the commission to notify them of Andrew McManus' failure to pay fighters as the licensed promoter, before any fighters left however the Commission said it had no power to force McManus to pay. Some fighters did receive partial payments in later weeks, but many were reporting they had gone unpaid. Huggins who had created the event had intended it to be a larger series of fights functioning as a collective of promoters licensing and sharing the Brand in many territories and had recruited local promoters around the world to work under this banner, however after McManus' failure to pay fighters Huggins and the other promoters felt the brand was effectively ruined and had to abandon it.[2][6]
