Woe Elite

The giant dragon probably should’ve been our first clue.

Less than two years into its bid to threaten mixed martial arts’ version of Microsoft -- the ubiquitous and money-printing Ultimate Fighting Championship -- ProElite circulated word last week that it would be disassembling its cage and heading off to bankruptcy court.

While that particular fate is virtually inevitable for any upstart MMA promotion -- when UFC President Dana White says it’s harder than it looks, he’s not kidding -- none had flamed out so spectacularly. Elite’s collapse was our sport’s version of the Great Chicago Fire, only with egos and investments collapsing instead of buildings.

Fleeing from the scene in flames were Gary Shaw, who managed to sound coherent despite a foot lodged firmly in his mouth when he told reporters it wasn’t unsavory to instruct fighters to keep a bout standing; Jared Shaw, whom cameras captured visibly aging as star attraction Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson was mugged by Seth Petruzelli on Oct. 4; Slice, himself, who failed to last even 15 seconds when finally faced with an opponent that didn’t consider Metamucil a performance enhancer; and Jeremy Lappen, who busied himself in recent weeks by contradicting the Shaws, the fighters and sometimes even himself.

Perhaps nothing could’ve been done to save Elite’s skin, but unplugging the phone would’ve been a really good start.

Should it make fans happy? In some respects, yes. This was a company that had the collective conscience of Enron, trying everything short of giving Slice brass knuckles to excel against mediocre competition. Its talent pool was the size of an inflatable, with only a handful of deserving athletes in each weight class. Worse, Shaw tried to infect the sport with several more divisions. Look how well that worked for boxing.

Good fights? Yes, occasionally. Good product? Not really, but there are deserved eulogies.

Shaw recognized the potential of women’s fighting, in general, and Gina Carano, in particular, refuting White’s idea that audiences weren’t yet ready for their presence. Any fan that came up in the 1990s enjoyed seeing Frank Shamrock, who -- aside from an obvious lack of interest or ability in fighting effectively on the ground -- looked none the worse after a years-long layoff. ShoXC gave emerging fighters a national cable platform, a rare privilege for developing talent. And play-by-play broadcaster Gus Johnson needed roughly three minutes of airtime to establish himself as the sport’s best voice.

All good deeds, and all easily forgotten in the wake of what some observers have called “Standgate.”

Expressing astonishment that there’s corruption in prizefighting is about as worthwhile as getting angry at a snake for biting you; it’s practically an evolutionary necessity. Promoters are out to make money, and there was money in securing success in the ring for Slice. Aside from Carano, no one else was a visible face for the company.

With his shaky background in landscaped pugilism, Slice was a dicey proposition from the start. At 34, he had precious little time to be physically tuned and would likely never adopt the skills necessary for high-level bouts. He was absurd, really. Elite was banking on a fighter who would probably never be able to compete for its own heavyweight title.

But who can blame those who ran EliteXC? They needed an avatar for their promotion, and Slice had been crowned by online communities as a latter-day version of Clint Eastwood’s Philo Beddoe (you know, the guy with the orangutan). They saw an opening and capitalized on it.

The irony is it didn’t require illegal manipulations to secure his place as a cult-figure brawler. Promoters routinely use sandbag matchmaking as a way of “protecting” or elevating emerging talent. The UFC, while taking great pleasure in pointing fingers at Shaw, wasn’t above it. Ken Shamrock was a frequent pawn, matched against Tito Ortiz and Rich Franklin for easy ratings and even easier victories.

There’s no end to the number of aged, puffy competitors who could’ve kept Slice busy for the next two years or more. All they had to do was bite a bullet and drop his fight from the Oct. 4 card. People would’ve gotten over it. It was free, after all.

Instead, they (allegedly) instructed mid-card talent Petruzelli to keep it standing, (allegedly) paid him handsomely to do so and (definitely) lost their ass because of it. If that was an example of the brain trust there, their bankruptcy proceedings should probably come complete with a clapping courtroom.

While I’m disturbed that the UFC can maintain its virtual monopoly on the industry, it’s worth observing that it’s usually responsible with that amount of influence. There are no accusations of internal corruption, title fights (usually) make sense, the best fight the best and there’s a generous amount of free product on basic cable.

If this sport has to be synonymous with one promotion, we should be appreciative that it’s the UFC and its decided lack of giant mythological creatures -- Brock Lesnar notwithstanding.

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