The news that ProElite Inc, the parent company for EliteXC, folded shop earlier this week was of no surprise considering their laundry list of debacles.
When the company opened two years ago, they began to lay the foundation for long-term success and had numerous tools at their disposal. Unfortunately through mismanagement of their ideas, their foundation began to crumble and the organization is no more.
ProElite spent millions of dollars buying up regional MMA organizations all over the world. I never understood the reasoning behind this as it was money that could have been spent elsewhere. Was it for the immediate use of talent? Was it to build talent? Either way it made no sense as all they had to do was build working relationships with the promoters which would have been mutually beneficial to all parties.
A source close to the organization told me they spent over $3 million on their website. While it was a great site, I could not understand why a startup organization would foolishly spend so much for a product that could have been built for a fraction of the cost.
They also took up residence in a very expensive area of Los Angeles, showcasing their headquarters in a prominent area. Why? There are many multi-million dollar companies whose head offices are located in areas that are a tenth of the cost. This way they can use the extra corporate funds within other departments in the company.
Their in-ring product had its pros and cons. The positive can centre around some exceptional talent like Jake Shields, K.J. Noons, Gina Carano and Eddie Alvarez (who we never had the pleasure of seeing). The negative was Kimbo Slice, both the fighter and the mass promotion they devoted to him.
As a fighter, I was a fan of Kimbo's but I would have rather had EliteXC build him slowly, not build their whole promotion around him. He started far too late in the game and may have never ended up being a true contender, but with time, they could have built him as a future champ, not a train wreck waiting to happen. Through all of this, Kimbo should receive no blame, as he was simply doing what was asked of him.
EliteXC gave MMA fans an outlet to watch the sport live, in primetime, on a national television station. A dream come true for many, considering MMA was a sport that was banned from pay-per-view in the late 1990s, and was for years a product that no TV station would dare look at. EliteXC struck a deal that the UFC would never sign, but if they played their cards right, would have eventually been considered serious competition to the industry leader.
With the chance to grow and take the sport to the next level, EliteXC tried to make amendments to the sport, which stalled their forward motion and went steps backwards instead. They instituted a rule where fighters were given 15 seconds to improve their position or they would be stood up. This was an experiment that was tested nearly a decade ago, and thankfully, history repeated itself and the rule was abolished.
They created a 160-pound weight class to suit talent on their roster, completely disregarding the agreed upon weight classes listed by the Associated Boxing Commissions. They stripped Noons of his title because he refused to have a rematch with Nick Diaz, whom he destroyed in their first bout.
The last straw was the match-fixing scandal surrounding Slice and Seth Petruzelli, where the latter spoke to an Orlando radio station. Petruzelli said he was encouraged not to take the fight to the ground, with more info stating that he should not use leg kicks either. These claims were initially denied by many EliteXC reps but now T.J. Thompson, a respected promoter who was hired by EliteXC, is stating otherwise.
EliteXC was in the final stages of confirming a deal to be purchased, but with the negative press mounting from the "Stand-up scandal," and an investigation launched by the Florida State Boxing Commission, the purchasers backed off and the final nail in EliteXC's coffin was hammered in. On Friday, the commission cleared EliteXC of any wrong-doing, but it was too late.
After incurring over $55 million in debt, the mismanagement of assets and a poor business plan from the beginning, ProElite Inc. and EliteXC are no more.
