Elite XC held a phone conference call yesterday to promote their upcoming event.  Elite XC’s Saturady Night Fights will take place in Stockton, Ca on July 26th.  PROMMA will be there (God Willing) bringing all the insde news and results from this historic event , which will be broadcast live on CBS.  The most interesting tidbit of information from the conference call was the clarification of Gary Shaw’s role within the company.

“I was waiting for one of those questions and the opportunity to set the record straight. Gary is still very involved with ProElite. Gary and our team from day one at ProElite basically took MMA at our company from ground zero to a huge network success. So, Gary’s got a lot to be proud of in the MMA world. In the process of doing it, as you can imagine, Gary being from the East Coast and we being a West Coast company, took a lot of time from Gary. He was traveling non‑stop. It took a toll on his boxing business, which is very successful and it took a toll on his family. To some degree, it took a toll on his health. We collectively made the decision that Gary was going to back off a little bit, kind of take a little bit of a relaxed role as far as being involved front and center, which is a good thing for all those three things, for his health, for his boxing business, and for his family. But Gary is still very much involved and I still talk to him almost every day. He’s still there. Gary’s interest still lies in EliteXC and ProElite, making it a top organization in the world. That’s the status with Gary…. Gary is still, like I said, majorly involved. I would say he’s more or less consulting in terms of all his promoter abilities, all his contacts and everything Gary does. So Gary is kind of behind the scenes with us, kind of shaping the direction of the company, the way it’s going, pulling the strings in terms of how we’re going to promote, what we’re going to do. Again, his involvement is very much similar to what it’s always been. The difference is, he’s not going to be front and center, doing all the time‑consuming stuff that he’s done in the past.”

What does this mean for Shaw long term?  Will he be ousted by the end of the year?  Does this have anything to do will the handling of the Wallid Ismeal lawsuit against Elite?  Nothing has been set in stone but this definitely sends a clear message that Doug DeLuca is now pulling the Elite XC strings.  To me, this has an eerily similar feeling to Lorenzo Fertitta taking the active role as CEO for Zuffa.  Elite XC has a bright future ahead of them with or without Shaw, so we will just have to wait and see what comes next.

Leave a Reply