The Fighter Duo: Krishna Shroff and Ayesha Shroff, Founders, MFN Since its debut in March 2019, MFN has hosted 13 successful events, becoming synonymous with Indian MMA and garnering over 100 million digital impressions
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Matrix Fight Night (MFN) is a pioneer in Indian Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), founded by Bollywood's motherdaughter duo Ayesha Shroff, and Krishna Shroff. Since its debut in March 2019, MFN has hosted 13 successful events, becoming synonymous with Indian MMA and garnering over 100 million digital impressions.
When asked if her children practicing martial arts, were the inspiration behind starting MFN, Ayesha agrees, "I do give martial arts so much credit for the way my children have turned out. They both have been practicing martial arts since they were very tiny. So I think martial arts has been greatly instrumental in shaping my children. Whereas when it comes to MFN it's a rather different journey. A few years ago, my son was part of an MMA League. He was a co-owner of one of the teams. As part of his obligations, he was supposed to attend certain events. And it so happened that one weekend he was shooting, and he couldn't free himself up to attend. So he requested my daughter and myself to go in his place. And I ended up watching the event, and I was hooked for life. I cannot even explain the kind of euphoria that took over. And the kind of excitement to watch an MMA fight live. I just turned to my daughter at that point. And I said, this is something that we should be doing Krishna. We launched MFN. And this was March 2019. And here we are, almost on the verge of MFN 14. And it's been a fantastic journey."
Sharing her journey as co-founder, Krishna says, "I've been following the sport for as far as I can remember. I have immense respect for the athletes of the sport, especially, that's really what kind of pulled me towards this direction, because, I've grown up playing this sport all my life. But what these guys and girls do is very special. It takes a very unique individual to do what they do, or what they can do. And, that's really what drew me and it's a blessing and very motivating to be so close to these guys and girls, because I mean, honestly, I can speak for myself, but when I kind of took up the sport, not professionally, of course, just for fitness purposes, training at the gym, it instilled a sense of discipline, and focus that I didn't necessarily have growing up throughout my teenage years. So I'll forever be grateful for finding it, and being exposed to it and being exposed in such proximity is, I look at it as a blessing. And it's the best decision of my life."
When they both got into it, India's community was very tiny. And there was no structure to an MMA promotion. And when they got into the business, the first challenge was educating people about what MMA was. Sponsors didn't know the difference between MMA and WWE. People were a little skeptical as it's a combat sport. "India is such a peace-loving nation. Will they like something that's so hands-on and one man against the other in a cage, one woman against another in a cage? Will that appeal?" These were the questions the duo battled with. In the very first event, they had 2000 people who attended the show. MFN recently concluded its 14th edition this March. The duo have also a gym franchise in place so that training can be available everywhere.
