Midwest Fight League

The Midwest Fight League (MFL) is a Missouri-based amateur and professional mixed martial arts and kickboxing promotion, founded and owned by Columbia coach and former fighter Robert “Rob” Hulett. It runs numbered cards across Missouri under the sanction of the state Office of Athletics, and in Kansas City it produces Bartenders Brawl, the service-industry kickboxing night held at Switchback at Incline on 9th in the West Bottoms.

Founder

Robert Hulett was a seventeen-year-old with Division I football prospects when he was struck by a drunk driver in Bethany, Missouri, and went into a coma; the recruiting interest disappeared. After a short stint with an Arena Football League team in Louisiana and knee injuries that ended football for good, a friend suggested mixed martial arts. Hulett moved to Columbia, fought for close to a decade, and retained a perfect record through four professional bouts before turning to coaching. In his mid-twenties he trained under Greg Jackson, later one of the sport’s most decorated coaches.¹

Hulett opened Hulett House Gym in the late 1990s — later the Columbia Training Academy, and at one point operating as the Heart of America Training Center — training amateurs and professionals in a state where, as he tells it, the MMA scene was effectively nonexistent when he started.¹² He has served on the board of USA MMA and has coached fighters to International Mixed Martial Arts Federation world championships, among them Will Starks.¹

The promotion

MFL grew out of that gym. By 2013 Hulett was described as Columbia’s only promoter of the Midwest Fight League, drawing fighters into Columbia cards from Mexico, Poplar Bluff, Warrensburg, and Sedalia to fill out bills.² By the early 2020s the promotion’s own accounting put its record at more than 200 shows and 2,200 fights, with upward of 50 fighters turning professional and fifteen of those reaching nationally televised bouts.¹² The promotion’s self-description as one of the largest MMA leagues in the Midwest is its own; no independent ranking has been located.

Cards are numbered and often subtitled by location — Midwest Fight League 209: Missouri River Fights is representative — and run in Columbia, Hannibal, Kansas City, and other Missouri cities. Bouts are sanctioned by the Missouri Office of Athletics, which publishes official results for MFL events.³ The promotion sells tickets and streams cards through its own site, and maintains fighter records, fan accounts, and a photo archive there.⁴

In Kansas City

MFL’s principal Kansas City property is Bartenders Brawl, the amateur kickboxing night for hospitality workers that the promotion revived in August 2025 after a Kansas City dormancy dating to 2012. Cards run roughly ten bouts of three one-minute rounds at Switchback, the outdoor venue at Incline on 9th in the West Bottoms, with fighters representing the bars and restaurants that employ them.⁴ Incline on 9th appears among MFL’s listed partners.⁵

Sources

See also

bartenders-brawl, west-bottoms

Footnotes

1. “Robert Hulett is a champion of Midwest MMA,” KOMU 8, April 2021 (Hulett’s injury and path into MMA, professional record, training under Greg Jackson, Hulett House Gym / Columbia Training Academy, IMMAF championships, Will Starks) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Sarah Redohl, “Fight Club,” COMO Magazine, August 29, 2013 (Hulett as owner of Heart of America Training Center, coach of Hulett House MMA, and Columbia’s promoter of the Midwest Fight League; fighters drawn from surrounding towns; 50-plus fighters turned pro with 15 on national television; USA MMA board seat) ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Missouri Office of Athletics, official MMA results filing for a Midwest Fight League card in Hannibal, December 11, 2021 (state sanction and results reporting) ↩

4. Midwest Fight League official site — event pages, fight cards, fighter records, ticketing and livestream (including the Bartenders Brawl card of August 30, 2026, at Incline on 9th, Kansas City) ↩ ↩²

5. Midwest Fight League partner listing, which includes Bartenders Brawl / Incline on 9th ↩