The first episode of Fantasy Fight League's wrestling series aired on July 6th, 2023 with Buffalo naive Steve Liebler taking our Austin grappler Micah Valdez, four periods to one.
Liebler and Valdez were among four wrestlers competing for a $1,000 prize in FFL's inaugural tournament. With his win, Liebler advances to the finals where he will face the winner of Caanan Towns and Manny Ramos. Towns and Ramos will take the mat live on YouTube on Thursday, July 13th.
"I felt good," Liebler, said after his win. "It took me a while to get going. I only scored a handful of times. I'm looking to push the pace and score more next match for sure."
Liebler, 30, is a lifelong wrestler with no intention of retiring in the near future. Last spring, he wrestled in the U.S. Open and he has wrestled in international tournaments.
"I truly love this sport," Liebler said. "It is my passion. It's more than just a hobby to me. When I'm not wrestling, I'm coaching wrestling. When I'm not coaching wrestling, I'm watching wrestling."
He wrestled for one year in junior college before leaving to pursue his business career. A decade later, he owns several successful businesses.
"I work in real estate. I have a car dealership. I kind of do a lot of everything. I ran fishing charters for a while. I stay busy with a bunch of different stuff like that. I like selling things - I used to flip cars when I was young. I thought if I could make money flipping cars, maybe I could do houses. It allows me to be able to take my wife to these types of things and travel, which is awesome."
Episode 1 is available to watch for free on YouTube, along with additional content around each event.
Viewers also have the opportunity to make fantasy picks for each event. To play along, create an account on Fantasy Fight League. You will start on a 7-day free trial and if you choose to continue playing, subscriptions cost $10 per month.
Predict the score for each wrestler for each of the five periods. If you predict the score correctly, you will be awarded leaderboard points. At the end of the month, the top 10 users on the leaderboard win prizes.
Also included in your subscription is access to both of our original wrestling video games, Wrestling '22 and World Wrestling '23.