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 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.

From Robbie Lawler's blog:

As everyone knows Elite XC is no longer around. I enjoyed my time working for them and I was treated really well. Thank you to everyone at Pro Elite for the opportunity to fight in front of millions of fans.

Last week I spent at the UFC with Matt Hughes. The atmosphere was awesome as usual. I spent time talking to Monte Cox about what my options are. I also had a brief conversation with the very busy prez of the UFC. All that said I think I will be just fine. I will blog when i sign with an organization. Until then I will keep my self in good shape.

Obviously, Lawler knows what it's like having fought in the UFC before. I think he has improved since he left the UFC, and it would be nice to see how he'd fare this time around. I don't see Dana doing any sort of belt unification matches, but I don't think Lawler would get any cans in his first few fights back either.

I can easily see Lawler signing with the UFC -- he'd be in familiar face, likely making more money than he was with EliteXC, and he probably wouldn't be more than a couple fights away from a title shot, if he plays his cards right.

It's going to be interesting seeing how many pieces of EliteXC Dana tries to pick up.

-PreView

Assist: MMAJunkie.com

From Sherdog.com:

The Florida State Boxing Commission’s preliminary investigation into the Oct. 4 EliteXC matchup between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Seth Petruzelli found no wrongdoing, according to Alexis Antonacci, a Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation representative.

Molloy also contacted David “Tank” Abbott, who lost to Ferguson at a Miami EliteXC event in February 2008. Molloy asked if Abbott had been asked to fight in a particular manner, to which the former UFC superstar answered, “No, nothing was said.”

What a shocker. I knew that this was more or less done to appease the public. I really don't think much of an effort was put into finding out the truth. If there was I think eventually something would have come out as not only were Petruzelli's comments completely incriminating but so were the comments that came from someone who worked for the company -- former ICON promoter T.J. Thompson. I really don't think asking Tank Abbott whether or not EliteXC tried to influence the fight was going to bring out any semblance of the truth. I am actually happy this is over now, though, so the sport can start to recover from this crap and no more egg will be thrown on to the face of MMA.

Alright, the latest episode of the podcast is up on the site.

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 FiveOuncesofPain.com:

"The California State Athletic Commission ruled Wednesday to deny Antonio Silva’s appeal of a one-year suspension and $2,500 fine for previously testing positive for a banned performance enhancer."

With EliteXC out of business, Silva would be a good pick up for the UFC's heavyweight division, which is looking better now that Randy Couture is back once again, and with Brock Lesnar, interim champion Nogueira, Frank Mir, and not to mention up-and-comers Shane Carwin and Cain Valesquez all in the mix.

What's tantalizing is that these guys will end up fighting each other at one point or another.

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.