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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Shine Fights now has a venue for their pay-per-view event this Friday after being kicked out of the state of Virginia last week. According to Shine COO Jason Chambers on Twitter, the event is now coming to the First Council Casino in Norman, Oklahoma.
Tickets are on sale now at www.ticketstorm.com, ranging from $35 to $250.
The event is scheduled to feature an eight man, one night only tournament in the lightweight division. The promotion claims they were not licensed in Virginia due to their decision to allow fans to pick the first round matchups, and they have announced three of the bouts for Friday's card now.
Drew Fickett vs. Charles "Krazy Horse" Bennett had already been revealed, and now Kyle Baker vs. James Warfield and Carlo Prater vs. Rich Crunkilton are on the schedule. Marcus Aurelio was supposed to be in the tournament, but with him taking a bout with Shinya Aoki in DREAM later this month it's not known if he's still in or not.
The tournament set up calls for the two first rounds of the tournament to have two five-minute rounds with a three-minute overtime round if needed. The finale would be contested in three five-minute rounds.
Shine had last minute problems with their last attempted event in May, which was canceled by the North Carolina state commission when Shine failed to produce the fighter purses prior to the event. The main event for that pay-per-view card between Din Thomas and Ricardo Mayorga was already canceled when boxing promoter Don King was successful in getting an injunction against Shine for the use of Mayorga. Numerous fighters contend they have yet to be paid what was promised to them by the organization, despite Shine moving forward with this card.
Penick's Analysis: I still have serious doubts that this card actually takes place on Friday. It's going to fail on pay-per-view with a much more stacked event being provided by Shark Fights on Saturday night, and the fact that there has been little to no promotion of the event in the first place. And, with how the last event went down, fans are going to be skeptical of purchasing the event when the last one was canceled shortly before the pay-per-view was set to start. Now, they've gone to an Indian reservation that does not need to be overseen by a commission, and with five days to get people into the venue at the prices they're charging it's going to be one empty house in Oklahoma. This is becoming a very big joke at the moment, and fans and fighters need to be very wary in their dealings with this organization.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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