EliteXC has reportedly canceled their 9/20 show on the University of New Mexico campus. While the usual Dana White nut-huggers will report that this is because they’ve gotten wise and decided to bow down to the superiority of the UFC its more likely caused by the fact that they’re spreading themselves pretty thin with a ShoXC show a week later and a big CBS Kimbo/Carano show a week after that.

UPDATE: Hilarious. The previous comment was the understatement of the year. There’s so much hysterical nonsense coming from the Elite XC cancellation its not even funny. Actually, it is pretty funny–imagine the most hysterical, Chicken Little, sky-is-falling assessment and there’s probably ones out there that are worse.

Basically, people are trying to connect two unrelated realities–EliteXC’s less-than impressive balance sheet and the New Mexico show cancellation. That EliteXC isn’t exactly flush with cash has been known for awhile now. It may have factored into their decision to cancel the New Mexico show, but the educated guess here at SavSci is that it didn’t.

As we noted the first time around, its a matter of resource allocation–and not just cash. They’ve got a HUGE show a couple of weeks away. The promotion and success of that is much more important to their longterm future than is what was essentially a “spot show” in New Mexico.

Even if they *did* have all of the money in the world, they’re working with the same 24 hours in the day that everyone else is. Organizing and promoting a show is hard work, and the bigger the show the more of a challenge it is. EliteXC probably–and correctly–figured that the ROI from focusing all of their promotional efforts going forward on the big CBS show is greater than having to divert some of them to a smaller show. Granted, had their strategic vision been clearer they wouldn’t have scheduled the show in the first place but its hard to argue with the logic of focusing all of their resources on the CBS show.

Here’s what we’re going to share with the Dana White nuthuggers who want to claim industry hegemony for the UFC and the “sky is falling types”. Just relax. One of the SAVSCI’s closest associates is a gentleman who knows more about boxing than anyone on the planet. He frequently likes to remind us when we get all excited about what we think is happening in MMA that “the sport is in its infancy”. And he’s 100% correct. The salient fact at work here is that people enjoy MMA and are willing to pay money to watch it. Zuffa/UFC are a formidable industry leader, but the MMA business is far too young–and the sport far too fluid–to suggest that its “game over” for anyone who wants to compete with them.

Maybe people are reacting so hysterically to this because its been a very slow news week in MMA–maybe because everyone’s attention is diverted by the Olympics. Or maybe its because so many MMA fans and journalists come from a pro wrestling background–they like to frequently prove that they’re “smart” and not “marks” by acting like they know everything. While there are plenty of similarities between the MMA and pro wrestling businesses–and as we frequently like to remind you, they share a common promotional DNA–there’s absolutely no guarantee that the MMA business will evolve like pro wrestling. And don’t forget that pro wrestling existed for over 100 years before Hulk Hogan leg dropped the Iron Sheik to set the eventual WWE domination of the industry in motion. In other words, pro wrestling is not the embryonic business that MMA is.

Nor is there any guarantee that MMA will evolve in the same manner that boxing did. However, knowing the lengthy and glorious history of “the sweet science” does provide perspective. What’s hilarious is that you can research the sport back to the early part of the 20th century and you’ll find “expert commentators” who suggested that “boxing is dying” or that the sport was financially not viable going forward dating back to the era of Marvin Hart and Tommy Burns. There were writers who suggested that the controversial Dempsey/Tunney “long count” would destroy the sport. There were writers who suggested that the sport couldn’t withstand the retirements of Dempsey, Louis, Marciano and other popular champions–a notion that sounds absurd from our historical vantage point since a kid from Louisville named Cassius Marcellus Clay trumped them all both in the ring and in terms of popularity and impact on the sport. (For those of you who don’t know, ‘Cassius Marcellus Clay’ later changed his name to Muhammad Ali. If you don’t know anything about Ali stop reading this immediately and go research it. Don’t come back until you’re finished).

The history of MMA in America dates back no more than 15 years (UFC 1), though you can make a compelling case that the actual birth of MMA as a legit sport occurred in the year 2000 when the New Jersey Athletic Commission codified the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. So we’re really talking about a sport that is around 8 years old.

In other words, relax and enjoy the ride as the history of our sport is being written…