After Saturday night put Seth Petruzelli on the map, he had a few things to say about his fight with Kimbo Slice and his dealings with EliteXC. Here's a snippet from his interview with an Orlando based radio station:
"The promoter kinda hinted to me, and they gave me money to stand and trade with him. They didn't want me to take him down. Let's just put it that way."
First, let's be honest, does this actually surprise anyone? EliteXC has been grooming Kimbo Slice from his very first fight, and they have promoted him to become a cash cow and to create interest from his back story. The problem that presents itself now is that, as fans, we can no longer trust EliteXC or any fight they put on in their promotion.
It's been obvious since day one that they have played favorites in their organization. They have "the face of women's MMA" in Gina Carano. They even stepped outside of the Unified Rules of MMA and created a 160lb. weight class for Nick Diaz. It's just now starting to come to light that they would go to extreme measures to protect their investments. It's a little bit different with Carano, because in her case, she can at least fight. Diaz? Well, that planned backfired after he was TKO'd by KJ Noons. What'd they do next? They stripped Noons of his belt when he wouldn't fight Diaz a second time after he considered Nick not to be the number one contender. Not saying I agree with Noon's in this instance, but it does lead us to believe that there have been plenty of sketchy things going on in EliteXC for some time.
Look, I'm all for giving bonuses to fighters that have great fights. But whether it was implied or even flat out stated that Petruzelli would receive adequate compensation for standing with Slice, there's no room in this sport for those kinds of business practices. MMA is just now starting to break into the mainstream, but it still has a long way to go before it is recognized by the masses. Events like this are setting the sport back, and are giving opponents of MMA even more leverage against it's legitimacy.
EliteXC would be best served to quickly realize that this is a sport, and no matter how bad you want to control the outcome, you simply cannot do it. Do you think the UFC wanted Matt Serra to defeat Georges St. Pierre? Hell no. Do you think they wanted Rashad Evans to knock out their poster boy, Chuck Liddell? Not a chance. But, as any good organization does, they roll with the punches, and do their best to market the fighters that win.
EliteXC has a lot of work left to do, and for our sake, let's hope that the work their doing isn't fixing fights, but promoting fighters that deserve it.