The Man Behind The League

The Man Behind the League

article by killswitch


Kevin Rizzo, most people here if they heard the name would think nothing of it, just another name in the crowd. But to the members of the OFC he is more than just a name he is the administrator of one of the most successful UFC 09 Undisputed leagues the game has seen so far. The 26 year old from Tulsa Oklahoma is, like most of the people from the forum, is a lifetime gamer starting with one of the original football games “Techmo Bowl.” But, his love for online gaming didn’t come until being introduced to the 1999 hit “Delta Force 2”. This is also where he got his first taste at success at managing a clan of over 300 members for over 7 years for the game, the clan has since become broken up and gone their separate ways.

Rizzo has been a fan of MMA since the early days of the UFC and attended UFC 4 Revenge of the Warriors, with headliners Royce Gracie and Dan Severn which was held at Tulsa Oklahoma’s Expo Center Pavilion. Although missing many events for a few years due to the rigors of college life he managed to keep track of results via the internet. Since then he has seen most if not every event since UFC 59 with headliners Forrest Griffin and Tito Ortiz.

When word came out the THQ would be releasing a game based on the UFC it was only natural for Rizzo to purchase the game given his love for both MMA and video games. Before the actual release of the game Rizzo joined a preexisting league for the game but soon became disgusted with the disorganized way with the way the league was run so, drawing from his past experiences with the world of online gaming and a dream to one day make fight cards for MMA matches he decided to create his own league for the game. And so one day, out of boredom and desire, the OFC was born. The league launched on May 19, 2009 and Rizzo’s goal for the league was a simple one, to show people “That there is more to the game then playing career mode and then playing some random person online.”, and under this banner the OFC would soon grow to over 350 members.

When not being bothered with some of the more trivial aspects of running the OFC Rizzo enjoys some of the simpler things in life. He competes in a competitive softball, and enjoys a good game of basketball. A few other sports such as pool, bowling, darts and the all important drinking are parts of his repertoire. When all of the complaints are handled and the matchups are set a spin in the boat during the summer days is always good for a good calm down.

So what’s next for the OFC and its members? “Well, being able to advertise on gamefaqs would be a huge help lol. It will take the support of the league for anything here to be successful. I can throw ideas out all day long but if no one gets in on it then it’s going to go down faster than you can say bantamweight.” The OFC is growing every day, every day welcomes a new barrage of fighters to the OFC and every day the OFC takes steps to expand the experience for all of the members, now offering a K-1 league, and the recent addition of the CAF fighters to the league. I can assure you that more is in the works for the OFC.

But, not everything about this is as easy as it may seem at first glance. Not every idea introduced to a league takes off. A lot of work goes into the decisions and ideas purposed to the league but still may not take. The recent introduction of the bantamweight division and its quick departure is a prime example of how much work actually goes into a league. “People think it’s easy to throw up a free website and recruit people.”, says Rizzo, “unless you enjoy micro managing people and spending hours a week updating the website, recruiting, and answering questions then don’t do it.” Few people realize just how much work goes into making the league a success. It takes an estimated 16 hours of work a week to keep the site running smoothly, only an hour of which maybe spent doing what actually drove him to create the league, match making.

“This league develops some good rivalries and gives people the feeling that they are getting a lot more out of the game.” No better example of this is the recent war of words between the members of Team Tapout and Bloodbath, or the upcoming OFC 13 featuring UTT vs. Showboat, not to mention the countless individual duals that are a constant in the league. This is what keeps us coming back for more the extra level of realism that the league offers that little bit more that an online ranked match could never offer. “I know the belts and trophies here are all "paper" but it gives a player a realistic opportunity to be successful in a gaming environment.” So what the belts and trophies are all “paper” we all wear our accomplishments here in our signatures with pride. We post it as proudly on our PSN’s and spread the word about the OFC whenever we get the chance. We’ve all been shown how much more fun can be squeezed out of all the shiny graphics of a game and it will be hard to ever go back to fighting ranked matches. ***

That was good article dude. Thanks Kevin for the league.

nice kill way to kill it:)

well written killswitch. ty for the league admin. btw can i ask what the 7 year clan was? I was in Clan AH for a long ass time. and so was whyeric why thats where we met. so we prob know what ur clan was aswell

Very well written article killswitch. And thank you Kevin for all of the time you have put into this league.

nice..i only read the first bit but im drunk but it sounded cool....will finish tomorrow...lets make a movie about him like ray!

Please, break your text into different paragraphs with spaces between them. Otherwise it's not easy to follow. It seems well written but I had to stop on the 4th line because of the text block...

Nice work, nonetheless.

great article

Interesting read indeed.

Thank you for the dedication Admin, it is really incredible that the OFC is still going strong. Had it not been for this league, i'm pretty sure I would have dropped this game after that horrible patch..but hey, here we are!

Underworld_Beast wrote:

Please, break your text into different paragraphs with spaces between them. Otherwise it's not easy to follow. It seems well written but I had to stop on the 4th line because of the text block...

Nice work, nonetheless.

Don't want to be an a$$ but please, do what that guys says. Besides, he's always right!

Underworld_Beast wrote:

Underworld_Beast wrote:

Please, break your text into different paragraphs with spaces between them. Otherwise it's not easy to follow. It seems well written but I had to stop on the 4th line because of the text block...

Nice work, nonetheless.

Don't want to be an a$$ but please, do what that guys says. Besides, he's always right!

i've tried to put the breaks in there, i've tried like 3 times to put the breaks in it won't do it for me for some reason