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.

From MMAPayout.com

The Company advised CBS that it was unable to deliver the Sunrise Event ordered by CBS for October 2008 under the current terms of the Agreement.

Accordingly, the Company and CBS agreed to amend the Agreement whereby CBS would assume all expenses for the event and receive all revenue from the event. CBS advanced the estimated event costs according to an agreed upon budget in order for the Company to pay expenses related to the event. Additionally, the Company and CBS waived mutual exclusivity under the Agreement for the Sunrise Event.

EliteXC seems to only have benefited from the exposure, since all the revenue went to CBS. So, that definitely will not help the fledgling company. Things don't look good for EliteXC. It has definitely been a rough couple of months for the promotion.

Congratulations to FightTicker.com member PreView, who won first place in the FightTicker.com EliteXC "Heat" Giveaway Contest sponsored by Bare Knux.

PreView will be receiving his choice of one shirt from Bare Knux.

Because the Kimbo-Shamrock fight was changed so late, I scrapped that fight altogether. Regardless, every contest participant would have gotten that fight wrong. In the future, I will maintain this rule of scrapping changed fights once the contest has been posted. In this case, the effective max points for the contest was 90 points (instead of 112.5 points.)

PreView scored 75 points to take first place. The next highest score was 50 points.

Thanks to all those who participated. Continue to look for more contests and more giveaways here at FightTicker.com.

From Sherdog.com:

Seth Petruzelli: $50,000 (includes $15,000 win bonus)
def. Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson: $500,000

Nicolae Cury: $1,500 ($750 win bonus)
def. Jorge Bouchet: $1,000

From MMAWeekly.com:

According to Kahl 4.3 million people tuned into the broadcast throughout the course of the evening.
...
The ratings for men and women in the 18-34 and 18-49 categories were down 11 percent and four percent, respectively, from EliteXC’s CBS debut in May, the last card to feature stars Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano.

Kahl stressed the ratings were a good sign of improvement after a lackluster showing at the second CBS-televised EliteXC card in July, particularly impressive considering the college football and baseball playoffs they aired against.
...
Kahl said there was no reason CBS wouldn’t broadcast a fourth EliteXC show.

Kelly Kahl, the person referenced in the article is the Senior Executive Vice President for CBS Primetime Television, so it's understandable that he'd be optimistic about the numbers.

However, I tend to think these initial ratings don't paint such a rosy picture. For one thing, the numbers in key demographics are down from EliteXC's initial ratings from its show back in May. And, that's with a main event featuring Kimbo Slice and a card also featuring the "face of women's MMA", Gina Carano.

While some would argue that EliteXC was competing against college football, baseball playoffs, and UFC counter-programming this time around, the point is that apparently EliteXC's first two shows created no new MMA fans and in fact had difficulty retaining the viewers from those shows.

The main issue is, why is this the case? Does MMA actually have limited mainstream appeal? Or do mainstream fans recognize EliteXC as the inferior product that it is when compared to the sport's #1 promotion, the UFC?

And for EliteXC, the question is, can the promotion succeed without both Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano on the card? The second show flopped in the ratings without either fighter on the card. And, with Slice having been exposed two fights in a row now and his mystique all but evaporated, will he continue to remain a big draw? Is it enough to be scary-looking and look the part of an MMA fighter or do mainstream fans crave skills as well?

Only time will tell whether CBS' experiment with EliteXC worked and whether MMA as a sport benefited from the trial. However, I've seen nothing in the first three shows that changes my opinion that it would have benefited the sport much more had network TV's first primetime promotion been the UFC rather than EliteXC.

Thanks to Edo of the Betwwx UFC odds page for this post.

That's what the CBS commentators proclaimed anyhow. I was forced look up my MMA betting database to really test this outrageous claim. Luckily for us almost every major US facing sports book released lines just minutes before the fight. The official Bodog closing line is listed below:

Kimbo Slice -550
Seth Petruzelli +350

For those lucky and smart enough to actually back Seth Petruzelli's over Kimbo Slice could have bet him at +350 (Bet 100 for a $350 return) at Bodoglife, +370 at 5Dimes.com and at +345 at Pinnacle Sports. Limits were very low across the board because of the volatile nature of the match-up.

Sure the upset may have caught a huge number of people by surprise but in reality the upset was not the biggest or most incredible win in MMA history. The single biggest upset victory in fact goes to Rameau Sokoudjou when he knocked out Antonio Rogerio Nogueira in his Pride debut. Other prominent MMA upsets are listed below.

Rameau Sokoudjou at +1500 win over Antônio Rogério Nogueira - Pride 33.
Matt Serra at +850 over Georges St Pierre - UFC 69.
Daiju Takase at +800 over Anderson Silva - Pride 26.
Joe Lauzon at +610 over Jens Pulver - UFC 63.
Gabriel Gonzaga at +500 vs. Mirko Cro Cop - UFC 70.
Houston Alexander at +450 over Keith Jardine - UFC 71.
Cheick Kongo at +355 over Mirko Cro Cop - UFC 75.

Kimbo's loss does not even break into the top five upsets of all time.

By Anthony Dion, FightTicker.com blogger

EliteXC's third installment of its Saturday Night Fights broadcast on CBS took place Saturday night and let's just say the results were very newsworthy.

The show opened up with a HUGE announcement that 44-year-old Ken Shamrock, who was set to face EliteXC posterboy Kimbo Slice in the main event, had been scratched hours before the fight was to take place! This is something that has rarely, if ever, happened before in any kind of fight production whether boxing, MMA or even WWE. I mean, for a show's main event fight to be scratched hours before the fight? Unheard of.

Obviously that left the brass at EliteXC scrambling to find a replacement for Kimbo because god forbid they'd have to scratch the show's main draw in its critical broadcast. Not only was the event being held in Kimbo's backyard, his fight was what probably drew the entire audience into the BankAtlantic Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

From MMAJunkie.com:

Saturday's "EliteXC: Heat" event at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla., drew a total attendance of 9.414 (7,723 paid) for a live gate of $826,433.
...
The BankAtlantic Center, which is home to the National Hockey League's Florida Panthers, can be configured to accommodate up to approximately 22,000 spectators, though it's usually capped at 19,000 for hockey games and other sporting events.

Still, following the disappointment of July's "EliteXC: Unfinished Business" event in California, "Heat" was a solid rebound. After all, the July 26 event, which took place at the Stockton Arena in Stockton, drew just drew just 2,871 paid attendees (out of a total attendance of 6,572). That event, which also aired live on CBS, drew a meager gate of $269,000.

While these numbers may be good for EliteXC, they are not even close to UFC numbers. For example, UFC 88 (which took place last month in Atlanta) drew 14,736 with a live gate of $2.6 million.

Regardless, the sole number that will determine whether Saturday night was a success will be CBS' TV ratings for the event. With baseball playoffs and college football in high gear as well as UFC counter-programming on Spike TV, we're going to learn a lot about EliteXC's staying power on network TV.

Was the Kimbo KO the first of many to come for the struggling promotion? We'll find out very soon.