EliteXC Folding?

According to Dirty Dave, EliteXC looks to be dead. Before their last show they were estimated to be 60 million dollars in debt. They were in talks to sell to CBS, but they've fallen apart. Its speculated that this is because of an investigation by the Florida Athletic Commission stemming from Seth Petruzelli's suggestion that he was paid to keep the fight against Kimbo standing.

The reason this is a bad thing is that EliteXC swallowed up some of the mid level organizations operating in the US, so this is going to leave a big whole in the MMA world. Up and coming dudes will have a harder time getting noticed, washouts will have a steeper hill to climb towards redemption, and just plain middling fighters will either get killed by legitimate competition or fight for 30 dollars a night. A lot of fighters are going to have a much more difficult time making a living, which is going to cause a kind of talent recession. American MMA will still be around, but it will not be nearly as healthy as it could have been.

As far as British MMA goes, it looks like we are going to lose Cage Rage. Cage Rage is objectively the best thing to happen to England in the last hundred years. It was so sleazy and unorganized and everyone involved looked like a penis. Hopefully something will come together to attempt to take its place, but it just won't be the same. Goodbye Cage Rage, you were too sleazy for this world.

This means a lot of dudes are going to be out of work very soon. The UFC will pick up a few of them (probably a mix of prospects and established guys), Strikeforce will hopefully land some lightweights for Josh Thomson, Sengoku might have a few fights for a couple of guys, Affliction will probably grab Kimbo, DREAM can't pay anybody but will still end up with some naive and hungry fighters, and everyone else is going to end up working smaller regional shows or as rodeo clowns (this is currently the most viable Cage Rage alternative).

This is all just rumour at this point, but Meltzer is usually a man in The Know. It will be interesting to see how everything shakes out, but its a very shitty situation for the majority of the fighters. Some guys like Jake Shields will probably end up in the UFC (this is good because it gives fighters a home and provides new matchups, and bad because those matchups will involve Jake Shields), and Strikeforce's NBC show will hopefully learn some valuable lessons (if it goes through).

I don't really know what to make of this right now, but its very believable that EliteXC has eaten shit.