All Mediocre Things Must Come to an End

Last night's EliteXC card had the potential to reach the widest audience in the history of American MMA. EliteXC had the chance not only to expand their main brand, but to really move mixed martial arts into the mainstream consciousness.

Then Seth Petruzelli ruined it for everybody.

People who follow MMA already knew that Kimbo Slice was not a good fighter. There was no question about this. EliteXC knew they could market him, so they protected him by having him fight really shitty fighters (Tank, James Thompson). He nearly lost to Thompson, and that's really hard to do.

The thing was that Ken Shamrock was an even worse fighter than Kimbo. He loved to stand and box despite having no chin and pretty bad boxing. He has some kind of brain problem that forces him to fuck up in every situation. Unfotunately for EliteXC and Kimbo, Ken's brain problem prevented him from even competing. Most people don't do much the night before the fight. In fact, for a few days before the fight most dudes just refine their strategies and generally Take It Easy. Not Ken Shamrock though. The night before the fight, Ken was practicing positions and submission with his nutritionist. Not a trainer, not a coach, but the dude who tells him what to eat so that he has the prettiest possible muscles. Ken has been fighting for over fifteen years, and he needs to work on his ground game the night before a fight. I'm not sure what he hoped to achieve with these last minute shenanigans, but the end result was quickly made public. Ken's chef headbutted him above the eye, opening a cut that required stitches. The athletic commission found out, and told Shamrock he couldn't fight. Ken Shamrock could not fight because he needed last minute grappling instructions from his nutritionist.

At the last minute journeyman light heavyweight Seth Petruzelli stepped up to face Kimbo, and knocked him out with half a jab with only one foot on the ground.

Seth Petruzelli might have just won the most watched MMA fight in American history. When approached for a comment, Brett Rogers murdered a man.

EliteXC's only marketable fighters were Kimbo and Gina Carano. Carano is popular in the sideshow sort of way (she is basically the bearded lady), but very few people go to the carnival just to see the freaks. With Kimbo's mystique destroyed, and the company 60 million dollars in debt, they probably won't last another year.

This wouldn't be so bad if it was just going to sink EliteXC. By almost all metrics EliteXC is terrible. Unfortunately, EliteXC has bought out or formed business partnerships with a lot of smaller organizations, and when they fold they are going to fuck over a lot of fighters. Other small organizations will slowly crop up, but there will be a kind of fight recession for awhile. These fights on CBS have been the best chance to spread MMA to a wider audience. While I'm sure last night will generate some new fans, it also alienated a huge portion of the potential new audience, and unless somebody with some kind of intelligence takes control of the ogranization, last night was probably the peak of EliteXC's popularity.