EliteXC: What They Do Right; What They Do Wrong 2

Positives: Last night’s event was marked by smart matchmaking, the appropriate choice of venue and location, and good use of local fighters. As long as the UFC continues to ignore the East Coast, this remains a major market still in play for other promotions. Last night’s event was the second Showtime/Pro Elite venture to be in the east this year and the live attendance was quite impressive.

In addition, Showtime appears to be televising a minimum of one MMA event a month right now (with two scheduled for March) and this is a very good thing for fans and EliteXC alike.

As far as I can tell, EliteXC is really working to build its heavyweight, middleweight, and 160-pound divisions. Last night illustrated that these are their deepest divisions. I don’t know if the promotion is ignoring the welterweight and light heavyweight divisions on purpose or if that’s just where talent acquisition has taken them, but I don’t see too much of a problem with the way they are building up their roster. It’s better to be able to create a lot of good matchups in a few divisions than to say you have a couple of decent fighters in a lot of divisions.

Negatives: The rapping interlude must go! Much like the dragon, Pitbull had no business being on the live portion of the card. Stick these acts between the dark and live portions or before or after the event. But, don’t waste viewer time with them.

The dancers still don’t add much to the event production. And, they may be turning off potential viewers who see EliteXC as a gimmicky promotion. One, maybe two, ring card girls should be enough. In this case less is more.