An extremely weird game of Shankland vs MVL, 2018

Sort:
Avatar of MF972

This (chess.com/analysis/game/master/15185983) was an extremely strange game, and the game analysis is even more strange:

They did "only blunders" and the summary is "pretty competitive, Elo 1650" ?!

Why didn't they start from a random position in a chess960 tourney?
Why did they make extremely strange moves right from the beginning?
Why did MVL win, being 2 points down, and not draw or "aborted"? 

Yes, certainly arranged, but... does anyone have explanations for the above questions?