Strangulation with seatbelts, Coffin Wars and telling Dana White to ‘go f*** himself’: Brutal secrets of America’s most extreme sports

JT Tilley is standing in a converted warehouse prepping a group of athletes for battle. After a few hours of waiting, 10 jiu-jitsu trained fighters are raring to go. But their canvas today won’t be a ring or an octagon.

‘Anything in that car,’ Tilley says, ‘is fair game to use as a weapon.’

What ensues shortly after in the navy blue Scion parked in front of them is known as ‘CarJitsu,’ one of several extreme sports being regulated, produced and broadcast out to the world by the Pro League Network.

And they really are extreme. Participants routinely choke each other with seatbelts, and, Tilley claims, the car’s temperature tops 90 degrees during fights.

From this space in Branson, Missouri, Tilley – PLN’s creative director and a longtime MMA promoter – has carte blanche to test and develop the company’s universe of zany offerings. CarJitsu was originally created by Russian figher Vik Mikheev and then adapted by PLN, while ‘Coffin Wars’ and ‘Ultimate Tire Wrestling’ are others that have made it to air.

‘I’m just living in kind of a wonderland of combat sports,’ he says.

CarJitsu participants are encouraged to choke each other with seatbelts to win

The fighters can only win by submission, meaning no punching or striking is allowed

There are plenty of strange attractions in Branson, including a fake Hollywood sign

To understand Tilley – and by extension PLN – a bit better, you need to look past just the 10 fighters who suited up for this CarJitsu ‘Grand Prix’ in December.

That’s because his rolodex of fighters also includes people staffing this very gym/studio, BFC Extreme, which kept 20 fighters on scholarship when Tilley joined PLN in 2023.

Before the fights begin on Saturday, a man running cables is identified to me as legendary slapfighter Raven. The referee, Kyron Bowen, is a fighter as well, while another named Kameron ‘Black Larry’ Harris is helping out too. Even the host of the broadcast, a silver-haired ‘Spy Kids’ actor named Dallen Gettling, has moonlighted in CarJitsu recently and is known in MMA circles as ‘the secret weapon,’ even if he’s just about done fighting. 

In other words: there are a lot of people in Tilley’s orbit, and plenty of hungry fighters willing to try just about any of his ideas.

‘The company’s co-founders, Mike Salvaris and Bill Yucatonis said, “Well, here’s what we’ll do. Let’s build a studio in Branson, and you have your team. They can be the test models. They can test the sports,'” Tilley said.

‘They train every day, you know, they’re willing to do crazy s***,’ he continued. ‘I have a sport where you got to shove a guy’s head in a tire, they’re willing to test stuff that may not be smart just to see if it works.’

The fighters are put through military-type training, he said, and trained for ‘whatever worst-case scenario JT throws at us’.

Being a test subject, though, can at times be a thankless task. 

PLN creative director JT Tilley is responsible for creating sports like CarJitsu and Coffin Wars

Rodrigo ‘Mexecutioner’ Contreras is seen being choked during a fight in December

On the weekend of the Daily Mail’s visit, just one of the 10 CarJitsu fighters came from Tilley’s gym, with the majority plucked from Tilley’s extensive network of connections in the combat world. 

In fact, the one BFC fighter who participated in this round of fights only did so as an alternate – meaning he wasn’t eligible for the winner’s prize, believed to be around $1,500 (all fighters were paid a small appearance fee). That led to a testy conversation between him and Tilley at one point.

PLN’s pockets, though, are bigger than they may appear to viewers.

When Tilley was brought on by Salvaris and Yucatonis in September 2023, the company acquired more than just him.

Namely, Salvaris and Yucatonis made Tilley’s SlapFIGHT Championship part of PLN, while his BFC Extreme gym and its fighters also became part of the company’s fabric. A new studio, which was nearly ready to open during our visit, has been built down the street from the current gym-slash-filming location.

The goal from Salvaris and Yuctaonis, who previously worked in horse racing, is fairly simple: be a ‘disruptor’ in the sports industry with niche, wagerable sports, using the reach of social media to their advantage – all while maintaining a sort of secret mystique.

‘We make the sports look underground for a reason,’ Tilley reveals. ‘You know, it’s a viral thing. We want these sports to look lower budget than they are. This place [the new studio] will be great, but we’re not going to make this place look like the Apex.’ 

The company closed a $4million seed-funding round in August, while betting deals have been struck with DraftKings and bet365 in some states, and the company’s fights are also shown on Stadium. A recent edition of Coffin Wars was even brought to the Twitch stream of Kai Cenat – the biggest personality on the platform.

‘The headquarters is in New York City, and it needs to be, because we’re doing real f*****g business here, man, and you can’t do that from here,’ Tilley said from Branson. ‘So that’s the thing about Pro League Network that I think a lot of people don’t understand, is that they watch the content and they’re like… sometimes we put hillbillies in for dramatic effect, or a midget here, a woman lets her t***y hang out. 

The Scion is seen parked in the studio ahead of the fighting. The car’s horn went off repeatedly

‘You know, crazy stuff happens, but it’s mostly because we’re just keeping people engaged. And I think it’s important that people know that it’s a company. It’s not just a bunch of people in a barn somewhere having crazy ideas. It’s a big company, and we have a direction that we’ve been headed in for a long time.’

On the ground in Missouri, things are slightly less buttoned up, even if that is partly the point. The Scion’s car horn, which is not turned off, goes off repeatedly during fights. One fighter complains about his hotel lodging to Tilley. Another, Steven Minski – who works full-time as a mechanic – takes it upon himself to adjust one of the car seats back into place after a fight.

‘You’re fighting in a car,’ Yucatonis flatly states, acknowledging that the sport is ‘intentionally kind of nutty.’

‘But you know, the amount of hours that we put before those cameras turn on around, making sure there is safety, making sure there is rules, making sure that it is a repeatable product. You know, we just don’t like wing it.’

Speaking ahead of the tournament, Salvaris and Yucatonis said they’re ‘very mindful about not overworking’ the fighters and making sure they have a proper amount of rest. Tilley added from Branson that PLN has agreements with various state athletic commissions ‘to make sure that we’re above board.’

But between his eventual semi-final matchup against Minski and subsequent championship matchup, fighter Vince Bryant has roughly 10 minutes to catch his breath, with Tilley indicating they’re running behind on time. While the fighter did give his blessing for the short turnaround when approached by his boss, it’s fair to wonder how much of a choice he really had.

Overall, the fights during the weekend do run smoothly, aside from one fighter, Rodrigo ‘Mexecutioner’ Contreras, injuring his bicep on the second day. 

Bryant, who used to wrestle collegiately at Arkansas Little-Rock, scores the highlight move of the weekend with a Spiderman-esque sequence that sees him leap back into the car from the outside. 

Another veteran PLN competitor, Jon Chambers, repeatedly – and perhaps dangerously – sticks his head out of the window to force his opponents to engage and tire them out. Newcomer Jeff Allen, meanwhile, makes a quick impression with his violent style, as he slams his first opponent’s head into the car’s interior roof.

‘The Mexecutioner’ wore a mask as he held an energy drink for a promotional video

Coffin Wars, seen above, is another one of Pro League Network’s zany offerings

Ultimate Tire Wrestling also sees competitors try and dunk the other into a massive tire

It won’t be the last time some of these athletes go to battle in a cramped sedan, or in another one of PLN’s offerings.

Coffin Wars, in which a fighter starts with another on top of him and has to escape the structure, is also featured on PLN’s website as one of its main offerings. Ultimate Tire Wrestling, meanwhile, is more considered to be ‘shoulder content,’ but sees fighters try to dunk each other’s bodies into a Monster-truck sized tire.

Tilley said the company was also developing a sport akin to the ‘Oklahoma’ football drill inside of a shipping container, while ‘Professional Food Fighting’ is also in the pipeline. Fifteen or 20 sports are ‘already tested and ready,’ he added.

It’s clear that Tilley, Salvaris, Yucatonis and the rest of the PLN brass believe they’re onto something with these ideas.

But what’s in it for the fighters?

Over the course of two days, Bryant – who has a 4-0 record in amateur MMA fights – shows he is a level above most of the other fighters, and winds up winning the tournament.

The two-time state champion and former D1 wrestler dreams of competing in UFC, and may even have the ability to do it. But his network is somewhat lacking.

‘I think this is just a lot of exposure, you know, meet a lot of cool people,’ he said. ‘And it’s kind of hard to get anywhere in Arkansas without moving out, so this is just the closest thing I can really do, and it’s good connection.’

Late last year, Bryant was part of the group hand-picked by Tilley to travel to Los Angeles and participate in Coffin Wars with Cenat and his other streamer friends.

Cenat, who peaked at over 728,000 Twitch subscribers in November (the same month of the trip), was hosting two NBA players when the PLN crew got there, Bryant said. Bill Nye was even scheduled to show up the next day.  

‘It was nuts,’ Bryant said of the trip. ‘And yeah, LA is just crazy. Afterwards, we saw Tyler, The Creator, at just some random diner or something. So it was a really cool experience.’

As viral stunts go, PLN would certainly consider the LA trip to be a success. Allen, who brought a couple of friends along with him to compete in December, actually contacted Tilley after seeing the stream.

Vincent Bryant showed his skills as a fighter over the two day tournament, which he won

Tilley, who also serves as the play-by-play commentator of the fights, is seen in his office

Streamer Kai Cenat is seen lying on the ground exhausted after trying his hand at Coffin Wars

But PLN’s promise – no, temptation – of virality doesn’t always pay off. Roughly 47,000 people have viewed Bryant’s incredible leap on Instagram, while some other videos on the account are in the low-thousands. Clips from the SlapFIGHT Championship, on the other hand, have been seen by millions, and so has one video featuring Allen and fellow CarJitsu competitor Wes Drain.

This is all to ask: how far can views and clicks really get an athlete? And can being the best in a highly obscure sport really earn Bryant a shot in UFC? Tilley certainly thinks so.

‘I’ve done 100 MMA shows,’ he said. ‘I’m in the Hall of Fame. It’s martial arts. And if anyone ever called me and said, “Hey, JT, I got this kid, I’d love you to book him. He’s got 35million views on the internet, and he’s got 200,000 subscribers.” I’m gonna book the guy, whether he’s a** or not.

‘That’s just the way business works. And so with a guy like that, he’s impressive, he’s got skill, easy to work with. We love him here. If he dominates and becomes the champion and takes a bunch of flashy pictures and with those assets, does the right thing and builds his social media – if that happens, absolutely he can springboard over every other amateur, yeah. But he’s also a monster D1 wrestler that’s probably going to get there anyway. This is just a nice shortcut for him.’

Others, including Minski, see Tilley’s creation as a sort of mental escape.

‘What I’ve learned about me is, if I’m not competing, I’m not there, I’m not mentally there,’ said the fighter, who has an 8-8 record in amateur MMA fights, but hasn’t fought in one since 2020.

‘I think all men have to have something that is a little greater than themselves, and something to chase, whether it’s shooting guns, or just being that animalistic instinct,’ he added. ‘And I think this CarJitsu compared to MMA, it kind of falls in the same boat.’

At one point during the weekend, Tilley says that PLN will be signing 20 fighters to CarJitsu contracts – and that 45 people want deals.

What’s clear is that – if Tilley takes this sport and PLN as far as he wants to – these athletes are on the ground floor. That wasn’t lost on Bryant’s friend and fellow fighter Fletcher Estes.

‘Walking out of the hotel, I was saying, like imagine if a couple years from now, we’re walking into the stadium with the car in the ring, in front of a huge stadium.’

Fighter Steven Minski is seen grinning before a CarJitsu matchup back in December

For now, in this nondescript studio next to a masonry business, that is decidedly not the case.

But Tilley is no stranger to showmanship or big-time productions.

The longtime MMA promoter initially arrived in Branson – known for its more than 50 music venues and myriad tourist destinations – via Minneapolis in 1997 with an itch for the entertainment industry.

First serving as a comedy writer for comedian Yakov Smirnoff, who still maintains a residency in Branson, he later toured the world as a member of Motown vocal group The Platters.

That showbiz experience, combined with his MMA pedigree (he started his gym in 2006) has led to an interesting marriage of his sensibilities as he tries to attract audiences to PLN.

‘I just kind of have this ability to know what appeals to people… I know how to produce content and so I just kind of have all the ingredients to be a one man wrecking crew,’ he said.

That ‘wrecking crew’ has at times collided with the upper echelons of the fighting world, as his SlapFIGHT Championship was rivaled a few years back by UFC founder Dana White.

White created competitor Power Slap in 2022, leaving Tilley with the difficult decision of abandoning his own ship for the new company or trying to fight the combat sports behemoth.

‘Basically what happened is Dana says, “We’re going to spend you under the ground if you don’t partner with us”,’ he said.

Dana White has rivaled with Tilley through his slapfighting competitor, Power Slap

PLN’s fights are filmed a short drive from Branson’s 50-plus live music venues in town

Tilley – who said he initially told White to ‘go f*** himself’ – ultimately agreed to a deal in which he continued running SlapFIGHT but also consulted for Power Slap, helping White’s company solidify their rules and bringing his four best fighters to that league.

But he was still stung by the notion that his company, which was formed five years earlier than White’s, should be treated as second fiddle.

‘They also wanted us to be kind of the minor leagues,’ he said. ‘And I was offended by that, because I was the one that had the only professional slappers on the planet, and these guys had a bunch of guys that had never competed, and I just didn’t like that.’

Both leagues have since established themselves as viable properties in the slap-space, and Tilley’s consulting role with White’s production has ended.

But there’s now a different battle for Tilley and PLN to fight: convincing the masses to take PLN’s array of sports seriously. A glance at the comments left on the company’s social media platforms can provide a pretty good summation of the mix of puzzlement and intrigue that viewers can feel when they come across PLN’s content.

‘This is cool but at the same totally silly,’ read one recent Instagram comment on a CarJitsu highlight.

‘Daf** am I watching,’ asked another, before crucially adding ‘and can I bet on it?’ 

Indeed, PLN’s eye-catching offerings are created, in part, to attract bettors and fill in the gaps of the traditional sports calendar.

The company does not yet have A-list athletes to boast (though UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman is involved as a commentator) or – deliberately – the high-cost production feel of other major fighting leagues. But Minski thinks CarJitsu is catching on.

‘I think when it first came out, people kind of looked at it and kind of scoffed it off, and it was just kind of like, ‘What are we doing?,” Minski said. 

‘But I think now people are like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is exciting.’ This is something that’s real, and people are kind of starting to take it serious. Because, to me… this is a real-life scenario. Someone jumps in a car… you get in a fight. Guess what’s going down? You all duking it out in the car. And if someone wants to take your life, are you going to be able to handle yourself in the car?’

Jon Chambers, Dallen Gettling and Bryant are seen before the championship fight

On the ground in Branson, the stakes have been raised on the second day of this CarJitsu Grand Prix.

The bracket has thinned out and – after having to go through the losers’ bracket – Bryant finds himself in the final against Chambers, who issued him a shock defeat earlier on.

Someone in the studio had mentioned that Chambers has two children at home, and less than two weeks out from Christmas, the winner’s prize could have gone a long way.

But this time it’s Bryant who comes out on top, earning a sudden-death victory that leaves his opponent visibly devastated. One video of Chambers pulling off an arm bar during the tournament gets about 9,500 views on Instagram after.

With two long days of production wrapped up, the fighters disperse relatively quickly out of the studio, perhaps passing one of Branson’s famed country music productions on the way home.  

‘The town where we live,’ Tilley says, ‘is a showbiz town.’ PLN has certainly taken inspiration.