Semi-Pro Football Team, The Ohio Valley Ironmen, Had To Cancel The Rest Of Their Season After Winning The First 3 Games By A Combined 166-0
Matt_Brown. Getty Images.Source -- The Ohio Valley Ironmen announced Thursday that the remainder of their 2025 season will be canceled as they looks onward towards a team relaunch in 2026.
After starting their season 3-0 with 45-0, 39-0 and 82-0 victories in their first three games, the Ironmen cited other teams’ unwillingness to face them as the reason for an early conclusion to the organization’s first season in town.
“The Ohio Valley Ironmen have faced an unexpected challenge,” a statement posted on the team’s official channels read. “Following those commanding performances, multiple scheduled opponents have canceled games, leaving the team without a competitive path to complete the season at the level that matches its ambitions. In response, the Ironmen have made a difficult but strategic decision to conclude play early and pivot towards preparing for a stronger more sustainable return in 2026.
The Ohio Valley Ironmen are a part of the International Football Alliance. This was the first season of the semi-pro that was supposedly intended to be an international league in both America and Mexico. The only issue is that the league only had 2 teams to start the season after two teams from Chihuahua and Tampa withdrew from the league. So the remaining two teams--the Huntsville Astros and Ohio Valley Ironmen--were left scheduling teams from different semi pro teams from around the country.
One of those teams are the Cincinnati Dukes, who play in the Blue Collar Football League. The Ironmen beat the bags off of Cincinnati 45-0 to start the season, and were scheduled to play against the Dukes again the other week. Unfortunately for the Ironmen, they didn't realize that whooping everybody's ass that bad would have some negative consequences. One of those consequences being that nobody wants to play against you anymore.
Teams have literally just cancelled games against them instead of having to show up to get a 50-burger hung on their ass. You can't really blame them either. It's semi-pro football. I don't know how much these guys are getting paid, but it sure as shit can't be enough to lay your body on the line to lose by 50+. They're probably taking the shittiest buses to these games, staying in the shittiest hotels, and getting fed the shittiest food after the game. If you're going to put yourself through the life, the least you can ask for is a competitive game.
Being down 54-0 at halftime? Yeah, no thanks.
The best part about this ridiculous story is that the Ohio Valley Ironmen closing up shop for the season now has massive implications on the Premier Lacrosse League season. Because one of the receivers on the Ironmen was Dox Aitken.
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He was a 2x National Champion on the Virginia lacrosse team. He was a 1st round draft pick in the PLL. He was a PLL All-Star in 2024. And now since his season with the Ohio Valley Ironmen has been abruptly cancelled, he slots right back into the New York Atlas roster coming out of the PLL All-Star break.
The Atlas are in 1st place in the Eastern Conference. They've scored the most goals so far this season. And now they get to add a guy who scores at least a goal per game for the 2nd half of the season.
But yeah. 166-0 in 3 games. It's a shame they decided to cancel the rest of the season, because this seems like the perfect opportunity to send a camera crew down there and film the next great sports documentary.