Inside Hammer Challenge Series: Josh Baker Opens Up About Matchmaking, Chaos and Building the Next Generation
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HOW HCS REALLY WORKS
Hammer Challenge Series promoter Josh Baker has learned one lesson repeatedly during four years of running submission grappling events: the card you announce is rarely the card you actually get.
Teams withdraw. Competitors get hurt. High-level athletes receive bigger opportunities. Matches fall apart. Sometimes a fighter even loses a teammate days before an event.
The promoter still has to make the show work.
During an appearance on the JMA Podcast with John Murray and Jeremy Fairhurst, Baker pulled back the curtain on the constantly moving pieces behind Hammer Challenge Series, explaining how HCS matchmaking works, why he deliberately designed its rules to create action, how the promotion develops competitors and some of the chaos spectators never see.
The conversation also revealed something bigger.
What began as Baker’s COVID-era experiment has developed into a legitimate regional grappling platform that JMA has watched grow through dozens of events, including HCS 32, HCS 33 and the $1,000 HCS 35 Grand Prix.
And according to Baker, he is nowhere close to finished.
The Card Fell Apart — So Baker Built Another One
One of the first behind-the-scenes revelations concerned an HCS event that was originally supposed to launch a Team Duel qualifier.
That plan did not survive.
Two of the four teams withdrew.
Baker attempted to salvage the concept as a regular team duel.
Then another team lost competitors.
Rather than cancel the event, HCS stripped the card back and began creating individual matches from the remaining athletes.
The result became a 10-match card split roughly between amateur and professional competitors.
That kind of last-minute restructuring illustrates one of the less glamorous realities of regional combat sports.
Promoters can advertise formats, brackets and matchups months ahead.
Then fight week arrives.
“You have to have the alternative plans in my head,” Baker explained during the interview.
It is a philosophy HCS has continued to use as its schedule has expanded. JMA’s subsequent coverage documented the promotion continuing through Fight Nights, numbered events and Grand Prix cards across New Jersey.
HCS Has More Than One Kind of Show
One thing casual viewers may not realize is that Hammer Challenge Series is not built around one event format.
Baker has effectively created several competitions underneath the same HCS umbrella.
The Fight Night concept began because athletes did not want the promotion’s traditional winter break.
Baker also coaches wrestling and had previously taken the end of the year off before restarting HCS around March.
Competitor demand changed that.
So HCS created smaller Fight Night cards: roughly 10 matches, quick pacing and a focus on keeping athletes active.
Then there are the numbered HCS events.
Those can include traditional superfights, eight-person Grand Prix tournaments, Team Duels and championship matches.
Grand Prix winners can earn $1,000 and a championship belt, but Baker made an important distinction during the podcast.
The Grand Prix belt belongs permanently to the tournament winner.
The newer divisional championship does not.
That belt must be defended.
Baker said HCS wanted champions defending within roughly 90 days, creating an actual championship lineage instead of handing out trophies that disappear into someone’s display case.
Want the Title Shot? Earn It
Baker’s championship system reveals a lot about how he views athlete development.
He does not simply want to pick two popular names and manufacture a title fight.
He wants competitors moving through a pathway.
At the time of the interview, Brandon Smith had become the 185-pound-and-under champion.
Rather than simply choosing Smith’s next opponent, Baker planned to use the Iron Man tournament to help identify the challenger.
The winner of the wildcard division could earn the opportunity.
That same philosophy appears throughout the Hammer Challenge Series matchmaking process.
Baker described Bobby Riordan as one example.
Riordan entered an HCS Team Duel almost accidentally after another team lost a competitor. He was sitting in the crowd, had gym shorts available and volunteered.
At the time, he was a blue belt entering a difficult situation against far more experienced competition.
Instead of deciding that one performance defined him, Baker moved Riordan back into the amateur structure and let him develop.
Riordan eventually won an amateur invitational, earned his professional eligibility and continued moving through the HCS system.
JMA later documented Riordan’s return during an HCS Fight Night, where he scored a fast guillotine victory.
That progression is precisely what Baker wants the promotion to provide.
A competitor should be able to enter HCS early, build a résumé, earn larger opportunities and eventually outgrow the promotion.
Baker Doesn’t Care About Your Other Medals
Baker made one point particularly clear.
Outside accomplishments matter far less inside his brackets than some competitors may expect.
“The only thing that matters when you get seeded in my brackets is what you do inside the circle,” Baker said.
Someone can arrive with major tournament credentials.
That does not mean HCS will treat them as unbeatable.
Baker said he has watched accomplished competitors enter his Grand Prix tournaments and lose immediately because they were unable to adapt to the HCS rules.
That is intentional.
Hammer Challenge Series is not trying to reproduce IBJJF competition.
It has its own identity.
Why HCS Matches Feel Different
Anyone who has watched HCS consistently knows the promotion generally moves quickly.
Baker designed it that way.
He is a black belt, but his background as a wrestler strongly influences how he views spectator-friendly grappling.
A technical chess match can be fascinating for experienced practitioners.
It can also lose everyone else in the building.
“If the only community that is watching my matches are jiu-jitsu people, I’m not winning,” Baker said.
That sentence may explain HCS better than any marketing pitch.
Baker wants submission grappling to reach people who do not already understand every positional battle.
Amateur competitors generally have a shorter regulation period to find the finish.
Professional bouts run longer.
The circle limits opportunities to continually retreat.
Stalling receives attention.
Simply pulling guard and waiting does not fit the product Baker wants.
The goal is pressure.
Movement.
Submission attempts.
Drama.
JMA has repeatedly seen that philosophy produce results. HCS 32 finished with 10 submissions in 10 matches, an extraordinary finish rate for a grappling event.
Later Fight Night coverage continued showing the same pattern of quick finishes, overtime submissions and aggressive matchmaking.
The Team Duel May Be Baker’s Best Idea
Ask Baker which HCS format creates the most excitement and he repeatedly returns to the Team Duel.
It comes directly from wrestling.
Baker wanted to recreate the atmosphere of a wrestling dual meet, where teammates, coaches and spectators become emotionally invested in every individual result because each match affects the entire team.
HCS teams consist of five competitors operating within a combined weight allowance.
Unlike some elimination-style team grappling formats, every athlete gets involved.
That matters to Baker.
He wants the energy of teammates depending on one another rather than a tournament where one dominant grappler potentially eliminates an entire opposing roster.
JMA saw that concept close out HCS’ 2025 season when Black Hole BJJ won the Team Duel championship at HCS 31.
The format has become one of the clearest examples of Baker blending his wrestling background with submission grappling.
The Problem With Women’s Matchmaking
Not every division gives Baker the same matchmaking options.
Women’s grappling presents a specific challenge.
At some weights, the regional talent pool becomes small enough that the best competitors have already faced one another repeatedly.
“The pool’s only so big,” Baker said.
That creates a difficult balancing act.
HCS wants elite competition.
It also does not want to recycle the same matchup constantly.
Then schedules complicate things further.
Unlike professional MMA, where athletes may compete only a few times each year, elite grapplers can potentially compete several times in a short period.
That flexibility helps.
It can also destroy a card.
A competitor may grapple for another promotion a week before an HCS booking and emerge unable to compete.
Baker does not lock athletes into exclusive contracts, so he accepts that risk as part of the business.
The Draw Baker Refused to Cheapen
One women’s matchup illustrated Baker’s approach particularly well.
Amanda and Kiara reached overtime in a match Baker had already struggled to book multiple times.
Then Amanda suffered a cut around her eye.
Baker initially thought part of her eyelash had come loose.
It was not an eyelash.
The injury ultimately forced the match to stop.
Baker could have searched the rules for some technical path to declare a winner.
He didn’t.
The match became the first draw he could remember in HCS.
“What am I supposed to make Amanda lose because her eye’s leaking?” Baker said.
The rematch was something he immediately wanted to revisit once both competitors were available.
That decision reflects another recurring theme from the interview: Baker cares about decisive results, but not at the expense of common sense.
HCS Has Already Become a Launching Point
The most important evidence of HCS’ development may come from where some of its athletes eventually go.
Baker mentioned competitors who have moved toward larger professional opportunities, including athletes who reached the UFC ecosystem.
When bigger organizations call, he does not expect them to risk those opportunities simply to remain loyal to HCS.
He wants them to go.
Andrew Tackett — whom Baker described during the interview as an HCS triple Grand Prix champion — represented the kind of path he wants the promotion to create: compete locally, build experience, make money, develop a name and move toward larger platforms when the opportunity arrives.
The dream is not to prevent someone from leaving.
The dream is to become the place where people can always come back.
Baker Is Now Matchmaking MMA Too
One of the bigger behind-the-scenes announcements from the episode almost slipped into the conversation casually.
Baker said he had accepted a matchmaking role with Art of War Cage Fighting in Philadelphia.
That means the HCS promoter is no longer only constructing submission-grappling matches.
He is also learning the MMA side of matchmaking.
The transition has exposed him to another level of combat-sports politics.
“There are a lot of shady people in this business,” Baker said.
His solution sounds simple, although maintaining it rarely is.
Build relationships.
Do not unnecessarily burn people.
Do not make promises you cannot keep.
And when something goes wrong, communicate.
Baker said he makes an effort to speak with competitors after matches, particularly when someone leaves unhappy about a result or rule interpretation.
He does not need every athlete to like him.
He wants them to understand what happened.
That distinction matters.
Yes, Someone Actually Sucker-Punched His Opponent
Then came perhaps the wildest story of the episode.
Early in HCS history, during HCS 3, two competitors reached overtime.
One athlete was exhausted.
Before starting from the back position, officials asked whether both competitors were ready.
He said yes.
His opponent immediately secured a rear-naked choke.
Match over.
Baker initially thought the losing competitor was walking toward the winner to shake his hand.
He was wrong.
According to Baker, the athlete walked up without saying anything and sucker-punched his opponent.
The winner ate the punch.
Baker jumped from his chair.
The aggressor then moved toward Baker.
Baker’s wrestling instincts took over.
“I foot-swept him to the mat,” Baker recalled.
Security removed the competitor.
Baker now laughs about the sweep.
He also admits that, with experience, he would probably handle the situation differently today.
The incident changed how HCS manages competitors immediately after heated matches.
It also produced one of the more surreal promoter stories we have heard on the JMA Podcast.
Then There Was the Guy Who Walked Onto the Mat From the Street
That was not Baker’s only bizarre event story.
While working with a fitness expo in Jersey City, HCS held matches outdoors.
During setup, Baker had been joking with people around the area, including one man who apparently decided he had become part of the show.
Later, after a competitor won, the man crossed the barricade and walked directly onto the competition area celebrating.
Security eventually removed him.
Regional combat sports.
You really cannot make some of this stuff up.
How Hammer Challenge Series Actually Started
For all the complexity HCS has today, its beginning was remarkably simple.
Baker had been competing himself.
Two losses frustrated him.
One came against a high-level black belt in a decision he could accept.
The other bothered him much more.
Little happened.
Neither competitor produced enough meaningful offense.
Baker left disappointed with the experience.
During the COVID period, he went home and told his then-fiancée, now wife:
“I’m telling you, I can do this better.”
She essentially told him to go ahead and prove it.
So he did.
Baker developed rules.
He built the Team Duel format.
He experimented.
The first proper HCS event featured six matches.
The livestream equipment?
An iPad.
The platform?
Facebook.
Total show time?
Thirty-seven minutes.
No giant venue.
No sophisticated streaming production.
No elaborate ticketing strategy.
Just six grappling matches and an idea.
Then people responded.
HCS 2 expanded.
HCS 3 brought the Team Duel.
HCS 8 introduced a Grand Prix.
By HCS 20, Baker found himself standing inside a significantly larger venue with vendors, hundreds of ticket buyers and family members finally realizing that his “little hobby” had become an actual event business.
That moment stuck with him.
The Moment Baker Realized People Knew HCS
Another realization arrived somewhere completely different.
Baker was competing at a NAGA tournament when someone from his bracket approached him.
The man told Baker he wished they had competed because he wanted to show Baker what he could do — hoping it would earn him a spot on Hammer Challenge Series.
Baker had no idea who he was.
The competitor knew exactly who Baker was.
That was the moment the scale of what he had built began sinking in.
HCS was no longer simply Baker inviting people he knew to grapple.
Athletes were beginning to view it as a platform worth reaching.
HCS 50 Is Already in His Head
Baker’s advice to anyone trying to build a combat-sports promotion is not particularly glamorous.
Have a plan.
Then keep going.
He told the JMA Podcast that everything could disappear tomorrow.
An event could lose money.
A venue could fail.
A card could collapse.
But Baker was already thinking far beyond the next show.
At the time of the interview, Hammer Challenge Series was around HCS 32.
Baker said he already had HCS 50 mapped out in his mind.
Not every detail.
But he knows what he wants the promotion to become by then.
That long-term mentality may explain why HCS survived the stage when six matches streamed from an iPad could have easily remained nothing more than a pandemic experiment.
“Stick to the path,” Baker said.
Hammer Challenge Series Has Built Its Own Identity
Hammer Challenge Series does not need to become ADCC.
It does not need to copy every major grappling promotion.
Baker appears increasingly comfortable building something specific to HCS.
Shorter matches.
A circular competition area.
Pressure against stalling.
Grand Prix money.
Defendable championships.
Amateur development.
Team Duels.
Wildcard opportunities.
And competitors who can move through the system instead of simply appearing for one night.
JMA has covered Hammer Challenge Series through several stages of that evolution, from early Fight Nights to tournament cards and high-level regional showcases. The promotion’s 2026 schedule has continued demonstrating the same emphasis on submissions, developmental opportunities and formats that make grappling easier for spectators to follow.
The most interesting takeaway from Baker’s JMA Podcast appearance, however, may be what happens away from the cameras.
The matchup that almost disappeared.
The prospect he has already mentally paired with five future opponents.
The athlete who needs another developmental fight before getting the title shot.
The phone call from a coach.
The competitor who suddenly gets a bigger opportunity.
The card that has to be rebuilt.
That is the actual job.
And more than 30 numbered events into the experiment, Josh Baker still appears to be enjoying the chaos.
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