Shine Fights CEO discusses card cancellation
“Yesterday, I was in court all day; today, I was in court all day. We did not get out of…
“Yesterday, I was in court all day; today, I was in court all day. We did not get out of court until about 4:30 p.m., and then this other thing started transpiring. I was ready to head to the airport to get on a plane, and the other thing started transpiring with the commission.”
“I spoke with the commissioner briefly. The issue was in the state of North Carolina, you have to pay into the commission, and then the commission pays the fighters, or something along those lines. Obviously, I was not present because I was tied up down in Florida, and that had to be done before 6 p.m. I thought we worked through that process and everything, but then the commission saw that we were without the main event, and he got concerned and didn’t want to move forward, which we’re all surprised at. Pay-per-view was willing to move forward. They had no problems. We were ready to go. We were literally ready to go.”
“I was on the phone back-and-forth with the commission, and it was killing me not to be able to be there in person. I’ve been stuck on the ground, can’t get on a plane, and I’m dealing with these issues. I get a phone call, and they say, ‘The commissioner canceled the show.’ I still don’t fully understand why he canceled the show. That will be the first call I make on Monday morning. Fans were there. It looked like it was going to be a really nice turnout. The fighters were ready to go. Everybody was there. Everybody was ready to go.”
“In this situation, I feel badly for the fighters. They’re the ones that are really getting the rawest deal out of this whole thing. They really are. These guys trained, busted their butts, and were ready to go. I think it’s not fair for the commission to have denied them that opportunity. We’re going to take care of the fighters. We’ve always been a ‘fighters and fans first’ organization. We are financially going to take care of the fighters to some extent. We’re going to make sure they’re taken care of financially. We’re not going to be one of these promotions to say, ‘Oh, it didn’t happen. We’re out of here.’ We’re going to make sure the fighters are taken care of.”
“We’re going to revisit things. We had some interesting ideas that we were bouncing around well before this. One thing I can say is that we are going to do MMA differently. We tried to do it with this card with the whole ‘boxer vs. MMA’ thing. We’re not going to be just a traditional, in-a-cage-type organization. We’re going to be different than everyone else out there. Even though this event didn’t go off, we’re going to stick with the ring. All of our fights going forward are going to be in a ring.”
“the MMA side of things, we’re going to continue to throw fights. We’re going to be throwing a fight this summer, and we’re going to get a lot of these guys on that card.”
“We’re passionate about mixed martial arts, and we’re going to stay that way. I’m not soured toward promoting. I love it. The main thing is I really feel bad for the fighters. I really want to make sure the fighters are going to be taken care of, and we’re going to make sure the fighters are taken care of. … We want to keep things going. We’re a fighter’s organization at heart, and we’re going to continue that way. We’re moving forward, and we’re going to be putting on more fights this summer, and that’s that. This is not the death of Shine.”