By Steve Ficca, FightTicker.com Blogger

Ever since Seth Petruzelli's 14 second knockout of Kimbo Slice last October, Kimbo's MMA career seems to have come to a hault. Bas Rutten resigned as his trainer, rumors have Slice switching to boxing, and nobdy seems to know his actual status as a fighter. Recently Elite XC President Gary Shaw told MMA Fanhouse that Slice has no contractual obligation to Strikeforce (which bought out 42 Elite XC fighter's contracts earlier this year.)

From MMA Fanhouse:

It appears that at least some of the fighters who were under contract exclusively with Pro Elite may be able to begin competing sooner rather than later.

From a press release:

LOS ANGELES, CA. — In a transaction signaling the dawn of a new era in the world’s fastest growing sport, world championship mixed martial arts (MMA) organization Strikeforce®, has acquired certain fighter contracts from ProElite, Inc, the parent company of former Strikeforce ® co-promoter, Elite Xtreme Combat (EliteXC).

From FiveOuncesofPain.com:

FiveOuncesOfPain.com has learned through multiple sources - all speaking on the condition of anonymity - that ProElite’s current management team is hard at work towards completing the sale of the company. Indications are that ProElite believes it could have an agreement in place prior to the Christmas holiday.

However, Trebilcock’s group is not considered the leading contender at this date. Sources will only go so far as to describe the top contender as a company with over a billion dollars in annual gross revenue that also is a recognizable name.

The story goes on to state that CBS & Showtime are open to working with a new buyer and have expressed a sincere interest in televising MMA in 2009. I for one have no problem with EliteXC continuing as long as the new ownership is sincere and will promote the right fighters rather than a side show circus. A lot of the fighters under contract to ProElite would remain under their banner and they would not be granted free agency.

From FiveOuncesofPain.com:

In a Nov. 19 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, ProElite indicated that the troubled company could possibly be close to receiving new funding from an outside source.

While ProElite opted to protect the identity of its potential investor, FiveOuncesOfPain.com has learned from its sources that the so-called would-be mystery investor is the Art of War promotion, which had tried to specialize in promoting MMA arena shows in Dallas before cutting back due to financial losses.

Don't worry. I don't think we'll see EliteXC coming back from the dead. I think this is an attempt by Art of War to gain a broadcast deal with Showtime. But, it seems like there are way too many hoops to jump through for this to take place. In the end the fighters are the ones who are getting hurt by being kept in limbo. Fighters such as Jake Shields still are not able to negotiate with any other organizations until this mess is resolved.

From FiveOuncesofPain.com:

Showtime’s planned auction on Nov. 17 of ProElite’s corporate assets has done the unimaginable; it has brought together competitors in the field of mixed martial arts fighter management such as Ken Pavia and Monte Cox.

“Whether or not these contracts are legally transferable is a matter of law,” the release states. “What is not at issue however is Showtime’s disclaimer that the assets are being sold ‘as-is, where-is basis, without recourse, warranty or guarantee of any kind.’ We intend to fight the lawful ability to transfer these assets, and as we believe these are personal services contracts, we do not believe there is an obligation to perform if transferred. With pooled resources we are prepared to fight this issue."

These athletes are being treated as objects as opposed to being treated like human beings. When will the crap that was EliteXC ever end? Not only do these guys find that they are out of a job but they can't even begin to look for a new one because they don't know if they are actually free to or not. Now they have to worry about some sideshow promotion buying out their contract and most likely holding it for ransom? I am glad to see these agents getting together and showing solidarity on this.

From NoticeofPublicSale.com:

Notice is hereby given that the Collateral (as defined below) will be sold by Showtime Networks Inc. ("Showtime") at a public sale on November 17, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time) at the offices of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, 350 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90071. The term "Collateral" means all of ProElite, Inc.'s ("ProElite"), Real Sport, Inc.'s ("Real Sport"), ProElite.com's ("ProElite.com"), EliteXC Live's ("EliteXC") and King of the Cage, Inc.'s ("KOTC"; each of ProElite, Real Sport, ProElite.com, EliteXC and KOTC, a "Debtor" and collectively, the "Debtors") right, title and interest in, to and under, whether now owned or hereafter acquired by such Debtor, all present and after acquired personal property of such Debtor, whether tangible or intangible, wherever located and of whatever nature. The Collateral includes all contracts between any Debtor and mixed martial arts fighters (including, but not limited to, Kevin Ferguson a.k.a. "Kimbo Slice", Gina Carano, Jake Shields, Robbie Lawler, Frank Shamrock, Antonio Silva, Brett Rogers, Dave Herman, Scott Smith, Nick Diaz, Cristiane Venancio Justino a.k.a. "Chris Cyborg", Eddie Alvarez, Yves Edwards and Wilson Reis) and all of each Debtor's video library, still photographs and home videos (e.g., DVDs and VHS tapes). The Collateral will be sold to the highest qualified bidder in public on November 17, 2008 at 10:30 a.m. (Pacific Standard Time) at the offices of Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, 350 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90071. The Collateral will be sold on an "as-is, where-is" basis, without recourse, warranty or guarantee of any kind, express or implied, including as to title, possession, enforceability, validity, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Interested bidders who would like further information regarding the Collateral to be sold should contact Kent Sevener at (212) 708-3259. Showtime reserves its right to adjourn or cancel the sale at any time.

Does this mean that any schmuck can buy these fighter contracts? These guys really are pieces of s**t. Not that we didn't already know that. After all, we knew they didn't care about any of these fighters and this just hammers home that point. The video library could be worth something and I could see HDNET going after that like they did with the IFL library. I pray that these fighters can move forward and get on with their careers without being on the shelf too much longer.

By the way, if you try and go to the ProElite.com Web site you are re-directed to godaddy.com.

From MMAWeekly.com:

MMAWeekly.com on Sunday learned that ProElite, Inc., parent company of Elite XC, has notified several fighter managers the company still intends to promote mixed martial arts events.

“They’re trying to buy time, to see if they can get more money from whomever,” Gracie said.

This really sucks for the fighters. The fighters are trying to make a living and are going to get stuck in the middle of the battle for dollars. EliteXC is going to make sure to get some money for the contracts that they have and in exchange the fighters are going to have to battle with them for fights.

I hope that this is settled in a timely manner, so that we can see some amazing matchups in the near future. I just don't see why the promotion has to punish its employees for its own failures.

His comments on Lappen and Junior Shaw are hysterical.

From MMANews.com:

Perhaps the most interesting bit of information from this mess deals with the contracts of ProElite's fighters. One of the managers I talked to said Elite might not be able to free fighters right away as CBS might have a right to the contracts. The network had a promissory note with Elite which didn't get paid. Like a lien on property, their only assets to collect are the fight contracts. This contradicts suggestions on Tuesday that fighters under contract to ProElite before it went belly up would likely be free and clear to negotiate with other promoters.

I have read that CBS & Showtime officials have discussed treating these fighters like they treat boxers and having periodic cards with fighters of their choice. If they have control over these fighters' contracts then that may not be a bad thing as we will still get to see shows on both networks. However, this does put the fighters in limbo. I'd love to see CBS & Showtime go forward with the pieces left over from Pro Elite. Give the promotion a new name and a whole new package with different production and announcers and help erase the sour taste left in people's mouths from the Pro Elite fiasco.

From Yahoo Biz on Tuesday:

On October 16, 2008, the Company received a Notice of Default and Reservation of Rights dated October 15, 2008 from Showtime Networks ("Showtime"). Showtime claimed in the notice that the Company has violated a debt covenant under a Senior Secured Note Purchase Agreement dated June 18, 2008, and related Security Agreement dated September 10, 2008, as amended by Amendment No. 1 thereto dated September 10, 2008, and related promissory notes, each as may be amended from time to time (the "Loan Agreements"), requiring the Company to maintain at least $550,000 of unrestricted funds with a nationally recognized financial institution. Approximately $6.3 million is outstanding under the Loan Agreements, which is secured by substantially all of the Company's assets. The notice states that Showtime may, within three business days, exercise rights and remedies set forth in clauses (a) through (e) of Section 6.1 of the Security Agreement. These rights and remedies include: (a) exercising any and all rights as beneficial and legal owner of the Company's assets; (b) selling or assigning the Company's assets in whole or in part; (c) granting a license or franchise to use the Company's assets in whole or in part; (d) suing, demanding, collecting or receiving in Showtime's name and money property or receivable on account of or in exchange for the Company's assets; or (e) exercising all voting, consensual or other powers of ownership pertaining to the Company's assets as if Showtime were the sole and absolute owner thereof. The notice is attached hereto as Exhibit 2.8

Basically, Pro Elite owes Showtime $6.3 million for not maintaining a minimum balance and Showtime has three days to take appropriate action outlined in bullets a-e at the bottom of the paragraph. I wonder which remedy Showtime will choose...

Assist: FightLinker.com

A lot has been said over the past 48 hours regarding the demise of EliteXC and its parent company Pro Elite. Most of it has been of the finger pointing "who can we blame" variety. I am not going to do that today. Rather I want to go over the positive & negative aspects of Pro Elite and what everyone else thinks came out of the organization that we hardly had a chance to get to know.

First and foremost we have Kimbo Slice. I know many of you will point to his lack of real MMA skills and the giant push he received from the company. I would be the first to tell you that I am very resentful towards Pro Elite for shoving him down our throats but I gained a measure of respect for Kimbo the athlete during his time as a “main event” fighter. Judging by all the reports that have come out the man was a tireless worker always looking to improve -- being trained by Bas Rutten is a prime example of his desire to succeed. With that being said, to the average fan and all the proponents of MMA Kimbo Slice was clearly a con. All in all I think the attention he received was both positive and negative. Would there have been fights on CBS without him? I am not so sure but it seems as though the company died because of the way they protected him and what appears to be an attempt to fix a fight in his favor.

On to the next subject we have women’s MMA. I have to admit that I have become a huge fan of the lady fighters. They are talented, hard working and put on the best fights on the cards a lot of the times. I was really looking forward to the payoff fight between Gina Carano and "Cyborg." The build-up to that feud was one of the things Pro Elite did right. They talked about it and put the combatants on the same cards so the fans could become acquainted with both of them and everything was shaping up nicely as both ladies were successful and you could sense that the fight between them would be outstanding. I like the fact that they didn’t try and make Carano a sex symbol they showcased her skills and gave us some insight into who she was as a person rather than having her run around in skimpy bikinis. The only drawback was her inability to make weight. The women’s division that Pro Elite built up was outstanding and was a solid pro for the organization.

Pro Elite also gave us champions in Jake Shields and Robbie Lawler but offered them no competition. Their roster was thin. Sam Caplan made a great point in an article he wrote in which he said rather than wasting all the money they did in buying up all those smaller organizations they should have put that money towards acquiring legitimate talent. Apparently they paid $18 million alone for King of the Cage. They paid some fighters much more than the UFC pays theirs and that handcuffed them. Once you pay someone a certain amount they are going to expect that or more the next time aounrd. They held shows in which the same fighters were always fighting. While they built up some nice talent such as Wilson Reis, Dave Herman and Rafael Feijao they did not have fighters who were ready to fight on the main stage. Their thin roster was clearly a con.

Their management team was awful and consisted of a bunch of tools and boxing promoters who knew nothing about mixed martial arts. Their behavior was atrocious and gave the sport a black eye. From Gary Shaw’s incessant promoting of Kimbo to his arranged confrontation between the Noons clan and the Diaz brothers, Shaw was the worst promoter in the history of MMA. Then we have his son Jared Shaw (aka $kala.) His laundry list of accomplishments include peeking over the towel to see Carano in the buff at her weigh-in, his over-promotion and reliance on Kimbo Slice and his outlandish behavior when he was jumping up and down yelling at the referee during the Slice-Petruzelli fight. Who knows what involvement he had in Seth-gate. I am sure he had something to do with the promise of more money to Petruzelli to keep the fight standing and to not take Kimbo down to the ground. From what I have read, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for CBS and stopped them from purchasing Pro Elite. The management team was clearly a con.

On to the introduction of mixed martial arts on broadcast television during prime time hours. When this was announced I thought to myself: finally these fighters will get an opportunity to showcase their skills in front of a large audience who won’t have to pay. Then I saw the main event and I thought to myself, this is trouble. Of all the fighters on the card they decided promote Kimbo vs. a journeyman in James Thompson as the main event? I said, give it a chance, and then I saw the dancing girls and had to suffer through Mauro Renallo but it was free and beggars can’t be choosers. What happened on May 31 was awful regardless of the ratings. Yes, I know people thought that the Smith-Lawler fight shouldn’t have been stopped and CBS was being too cautious and maybe they were but the main event was a joke and America was treated to more Kimbo Slice theatrics. The next two cards turned out to be better as far as production and the fights we were shown but as I stated earlier the last fight the fans saw killed Pro Elite and their relationship with CBS. All in all I still have to say that it was a pro to have the shows on national television because this opened up MMA to a new breed of fans and showcased some real fighters like Shields, Carano, Lawler and more.

While many people will say that Pro Elite was an utter failure there was some good that came out of it. There was more bad (Goldberg to name one!) than good (new starts for Brett Rogers, Dave Herman, etc.). The existence of Elite proved one thing and that is it isn’t easy to promote MMA. Many have tried and many have failed. Let’s give credit where credit is due with regards to the job Dana White and the UFC have done. They have built a successful business model and are exploding. You can have deep pockets but if you don’t know what you are doing and you hitch your wagon to the wrong star it is inevitable that you will fail.

Originally posted at MMAOpinion.com.

For those who haven’t heard about the recent icing of EliteXC, that’s because this broke fairly recently. It appears that Pro Elite has been bought out by Showtime, which is run by CBS. There is a serious question of whether they will continue to air fights, especially in regard to their upcoming event featuring the fight between Nick Diaz and Eddie Alvarez.

I won’t say that I’m surprised at the downfall of Pro Elite, and the notorious “idiot Gary Shaw” (as Dana White so affectionately named him), but I was severely disappointed at the timing. While I knew that the end of Kimbo Slice’s undefeated streak ended the easy promoting and would eventually lead to a good deal of unraveling, it sucks that this may end the chance for EXC to put on the one truly substantial card they were going to offer, as that Diaz vs. Alvarez card seemed to be.

The reality is, this is a failed business model, and I hope that up-and-coming organizations will recognize that. The way to success, especially against a giant as truly colossal and well run as the UFC is, is to offer a legitimate and consistent process and market it efficiently. A business must be built, not simply erected. To play out the architectural metaphor, there needs to be a substantial foundation.

EliteXC had a crappy business model, and they built their organization on fighters who lacked consistency. While they had fighters in their organization that were substantial, they built up the flimsiest fighter in the sport and pushed a female athlete who, while sensational, remains questionable in her ability to make weight.

A bad business model coupled with generally questionable ethics made is easy to recognize the inevitable collapse, but that doesn’t mean it won’t have an impact on the sport. If EliteXC does fold, the contracts of fighters like Diaz, Alvarez and Antonio Silva go out on the market, and that is a big deal, because while the UFC could (and should) pick up these contracts, but there are other places for these fighters to go, and that is what I’m waiting to hear.

That's the word according to onthemat.com. While it's not much of a surprise to see EliteXC go down, given how poorly the promotion was run and how much money it had hemorrhaged in just under two years of existence, it's still a bit stunning when it actually happens.

From onthemat.com:

Word has gotten back to us that ProElite, the website ProElite.com and the parent company to EliteXC is finished. Employees received word today, and the doors are closing Friday.

OTM co-founder Scotty Nelson was at one time employed by ProElite in the "Grappling Advisor" role at a time when ProElite's pockets and fortunes seemed boundless. He was let go in the first round of layoffs several months ago in what would be one of several attempts for the company to reorganize themselves to remain competitive. In further purchases, ProElite acquired a number of companies, including MMA promotions King of the Cage, Cage Rage, Spirit ME, and Icon. Rumble on the Rock, the promotion owned by JD Penn, brother of JD Penn was actually only leased to ProElite. JD was notified of his layoff this afternoon as well.

So, it's apparently time to say bye-bye to the promotion that tried to shove Kimbo Slice down our throats. EliteXC has (had?) a number of talented fighters on its roster including Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, and Gina Carano, to name a few. It certainly will be interesting to watch where these fighters end up.

Update: SI.com is confirming this story.

Assist: FightTicker.com member MMABrat

Sherdog.com is reportingthat Showtime Networks filed public notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday announcing its intention to enter preliminary negotiations for the purchase of Pro Elite Inc.

Pro Elite is currently 55 million dollars in debt and a purchase may be the only thing to save this struggling promotion.

Hopefully with the backing of Showtime and CBS, Pro Elite will be able to raise its production value and sign more top talent.

Pro Elite not only owns Elite XC, but also owns King of the Cage, Cage Rage, Icon Sports and Rumble on the Rock.