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Prior to reading this first part of my look at Elite XC, I must note that even though the entire Pro Elite company is going out of business, I am simply going to focus on the business practices of Elite XC and the downfall of that end of Pro Elite.
When I was younger, I used to work on weekends for my fathers construction company and he always stressed to me that you can never put a house together without a solid foundation. No matter how pretty the house looks on the inside and outside, if the foundation is crumbling, the house will eventually fall down. This theory also worked for Elite XC, because they had all the fancy stuff any MMA promotion would want, but when the foundation started to crack, the promotion eventually crumbled.
It seemed that from the beginning that Elite XC would very much function like a rollercoaster, with tons of ups and downs. Elite XC started off by becoming the first MMA promotion to sign a deal with a pay channel in the Showtime network. That is something that even the seemingly invincible Ultimate Fighting Championships could do with HBO or other networks.
That historic first event was titled Elite XC: Destiny and it featured a who’s who of MMA veterans like Frank Shamrock, Renzo Gracie, Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett, David Louiseau, Mike Pyle and the future face of women’s MMA, Gina Carano. That first event took place on February 10th, 2007 and little did the MMA universe know that a simple year and eight months later, Elite XC would ride the highest of highs and crash to the lowest of lows.
That first event was headlined by MMA legends Frank Shamrock and Renzo Gracie, continuing the long standing rivalry between The Shamrock’s and The Gracie’s. The event ended with controversy after Frank Shamrock was disqualified for using illegal knee strikes to the back on Renzo Gracie’s head, Renzo Gracie would leave and never compete inside the Elite XC cage again while Frank Shamrock would make a transition to Elite XC color commentator.
There was a bright spot in the event, actually a very bright spot, which goes by the name of Gina Carano, who defeated Julie Kedzie in easily one of the most important female MMA fights in history. Gina Carano is a woman who, if you’ve never seen MMA in your life, could pass for a supermodel or actress if you saw her outside the brutal world of cage fighting. In the less than two years of existence of Elite XC, Gina Carano would fight in an important milestone fight for women’s MMA to the widely recognized face of female MMA. From her role on American Gladiators to her image being used in the video game Command & Conquer III: Red Alert, Gina Carano would become the most recognized personality in Elite XC, more so than even Kimbo Slice.
Elite XC would then make an interesting move with the formation of Sho XC with Showtime, which was basically the MMA equivalent of Showtime boxing’s Sho Box series. Elite XC would use this as a tool to recruit fighters for the Elite XC promotion, kind of like how the WWE uses Florida Championship Wrestling to see which wrestlers are ready for the WWE.
The first Sho XC event featured an exciting lightweight battle between KJ Noons and Edson Berto, which ended with KJ Noons knocking out Edson Berto in the third round. Although the fight ended in spectacular fashion, it would be the real start of the messy divorce between future Elite XC Lightweight Champion KJ Noons and the Elite XC promotion. I must also make a quick note that in the first Elite XC event, KJ Noons was defeated by Charles Bennett by knockout in the opening round.
After nearly seven months, Elite XC would host its second official event on September 15th, 2007 entitled Elite XC: Uprising. Now let me make a quick note here, just to say that Elite XC co-promoted an event with the Strikeforce promotion between this event and the first Elite XC event, which featured Murilo Rua defeating Joey Villasenor to be crowned the first Elite XC Middleweight Champion. This is an important fact, because the Elite XC Middleweight Title would be held by a new fighter by the end of the event, as Robbie Lawler would defeat Murilo Rua by knockout in the third round to become the second and last Elite XC Middleweight Champion.
This event would also feature an exciting fight between Gina Carano and Tonya Evinger, but feature another person who would become a prime focus in the Elite XC/KJ Noons divorce, that person is Nick Diaz. Nick Diaz would go onto defeat Mike Aina in this event, the victory would lead to a fight with KJ Noons at a future Elite XC event to crown the first Elite XC Lightweight Champion, the result of that fight would become a sticking point in the Elite XC/KJ Noons divorce.
In seven months of existence, Elite XC had taken strides by crowning its first champion, would run two successful events, co-promote an event with Strikeforce, had successfully taken women’s MMA to the big time by pushing Gina Carano, created a sister promotion in Sho XC and was quickly becoming recognized as a force in the world of MMA. Now, while the Elite XC/KJ Noons war would come into play near the end of Elite XC’s existence, the signing of a You Tube sensation would launch the company to its highest depth, but ultimately cause its untimely demise.
You can contact David Tees at bigtees360@yahoo.com.
