At one point on the timeline of MMA history, ProElite was in possession of EliteXC, Spirit MC, Icon Sport, KOTC and Rumble on the Rock. They also totted a pretty impressive primetime CBS contract that enabled to company to pull an astronomically high television viewership on their ‘Saturday Night Fight’ series. On September 6th 2007, ProElite announced they gobbled up yet another organization, British behemoth Cage Rage. They would use this acquisition to share fighters with their new alliance with FEG. Everything looked good on paper, British fighters coming to America, American fighters being swapped with Japanese guys. It was like some weird multi-cultural Lego set. Except, Proelite never really completed the purchase of Cage Rage.
The plot thickens in the ProElite debacle with a new slant on the situation not yet revealed… a conversation with Andy Geer following the inaugural Ultimate Challenge show this past weekend revealed that although Cage Rage had been purchased by ProElite, they hadn’t actually paid for it before going under.
Geer explains the situation, “To all intents and purposes, ProElite had entered into an agreement to purchase Cage Rage. A deal was struck with a deposit accepted. Then they had a cut-off date to make a balloon payment; they never completed the purchase.”
Yeah, if your name was Andy Geer (promoter of Cage Rage) then your life pretty much started to suck at the end of 2008. He tried to get ownership of his organization back from ProElite but by this time, ProElite collapsed and all that’s left on Proelite.com is remnants of what once was.
Today it was announced the Stratus Media Group, the same company that put a reported $40 million bid on Strikeforce before it was sold to ZUFFA, has purchased 95% of Proelite, Inc. and it looks like they’re not wasting any time to get back into the MMA business. Here’s a quote from the CEO of Stratus Media Group, Paul Feller, about the acquisition.
“This acquisition provides the resources and abilities ProElite needs in order to focus on strengthening and repositioning its world class MMA fighting platform in addition to the brand itself. Under the new SMDI Action Sports Vertical, ProElite is launching a series of MMA events that will bring a new vitality to the business of MMA and reestablish ProElite as a leading international MMA organization.”
With OneFC emerging in Asia, Bellator allegedly being moved to Spike TV and now ProElite returning back to the US, the future of MMA is undoubtedly saliva-inducing. That’s a pretty disgusting way to say things look very promising. Damn. [Source]
