MMA Week In Review: Strikeforce/EliteXC Details, UFC 97/Montreal Issues, More

Most of the week's news happened outside the ring as the UFC finally has a weekend off, details emerged with Strikeforce's purchase of EliteXC's assets and UFC 97 in Montreal is facing major regulation issues.

The financial details of Strikeforce's purchase of EliteXC's assets have been released thanks to their SEC filings. In all, the organization bought 42 fighter contracts and the video library for $3 million in cash and assumptions of some of Elite's financial liabilities. Pro Elite will also receive a portion of Strikeforce's deal with Showtime, but not until 2012 when their contract runs out.

Interestingly enough, Pro Elite still owns the EliteXC name and will remain the parent company of King of the Cage, one of the many organizations they purchased in the past few years.

Their $6.3 million in debt to CBS/Showtime has been absolved, so the company may move ahead and promote again without a huge financial burden. This part blows my mind considering what happened, but fight promotions is a strange business.

Other details from the Wrestling Observer newsletter:

- The 4/11 show will be built through 'short-form' segments on Showtime, Sho.com, Yahoo.com and others and will not have a Countdown show similar to what UFC does.

- Learning from previous mistakes, Kimbo Slice (above) won't be given main events anytime soon as S'force CEO Scott Coker estimated he'll have 10-12 developmental fighters before that happens.

- S'force is working on deal with Jake Shields and there is an outside chance he could compete on April 11, possibly against Jay Hieron or Joe Riggs.

- If Frank Shamrock (right) beats Nick Diaz on 4/11, a rematch with Cung Le will be up next. And if the much-discussed Shamrock vs. Shamrock match ever happens, it will have to be on PPV as CBS officials basically blame Ken for the EliteXC debacle last October.

This one came out of nowhere this week, but just hours after selling tons of tickets for April 18th's UFC 97 in Montreal, the Quebec Alcohol, Races and Games Commission has decided to enforce laws that may prohibit the event from coming off.

In dealing with the aftermath of a 2/6 incident at the Strikebox event in Montreal where fans peppered the ring with cans and bottles in a match between James Thompson vs. Steve Bosse due to perceived rules infractions, the Commission has decided to enforce the laws that allows only boxing, kickboxing and a mixture of rules fights—not MMA as we understand it.

As it stands, no elbow or knee strikes would be allowed at UFC 97 and similar to boxing, a fallen opponent would be allowed time to recover. The UFC's Marc Ratner said that they were aware of these issues all along and they've obviously put on events there before that have featured good ol' MMA fights.

But their commissioner has said it will be difficult to change the law by April and said that the commission wasn't there for the economic growth of the city. Huh? That is a laughable statement. More details as they come.

Pre-sale tickets for the 4/11 Strikeforce show go on sale Monday at 10AM through Sunday, February 22 starting at midnight at Ticketmaster.com. Just use the promo code 'EXPLODE'.

I finally watched last Saturday's UFC Fight Night and thought it was a very entertaining show. But it wasn't Anthony Johnson's convincing win or Joe Lauzon's victory that left me with a lasting impression, but rather play-by-play commentator Mike Goldberg's comment following a controversial stoppage during the Matt Veach/Matt Grice fight.

Following what looked to be an early stoppage in Veach's favor, Goldberg threw out, "Maybe they can do it again," insinuating that a rematch would make everything better. I usually like Goldberg's work, but he tends to bring up the idea of a rematch more often than he should. What incentive is there for Veach to sign on for a rematch?

Will that somehow make it right for Grice? Bad decisions happen all the time, but putting the two fighters in there again doesn't mean everything will be a-ok again.

We'll have UFC 95 coverage this week on the site as we close in on Saturday's event on Spike TV that features Diego Sanchez vs. Joe Stevenson as the headliner.

The WEC officially announced their April 5th event at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago, IL, featuring Bantamweight Champ and home state boy Miguel Torres vs. Brian Bowles and Jeff Curran vs. Joe Benavidez. Tickets are on sale now.

Josh Nason - josh [at] ropesringandcage [dot com] - has published MMA, wrestling and boxing blog Ropes, Ring and Cage.com since 2007. If you are using any content or recapping from this site, please include a link to www.ropesringandcage.com. Thank you for your support!