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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The saga with Shine Fights is seemingly never-ending. After initially claiming they were denied a license in Virginia for this Friday's pay-per-view event due to the "fan voting" aspect of their eight-man, one night only tournament - causing them to move the event to Oklahoma - they then blamed their failure to get a license on internet reports about their May event causing concern.
Now, however, the Virginia Professional Boxing and Wrestling Program has laid the blame entirely on Shine.
According to a new report at Sherdog.com, "the promotion’s inability to provide mandatory documents, including evidence of a surety bond to cover fighters’ purses," was the reason behind them denying Shine a promoter's license for the event.
Per Mary Broz-Vaughan, director of communications for the Dept. of Professional and Occupational Regulation, the commission worked with the organization as much as possible to get the event together and to allow it to go through on Friday. They even gave the organization an extension past the typical deadline for the required information.
But Shine still failed to provide complete medical records and test results, as well as fighter records.
"We were begging for information from them on Tuesday,” said Broz-Vaughan. “We just can’t put on an event without the required documents.”
In addition, Broz-Vaughan stated that Shine failed to provide evidence that they had gotten a surety bond, something required by the state to ensure that fighter purses, "the payment of officials and the minimum gate fee tax is covered prior to the event."
Shine's May pay-per-view event was canceled at the last minute by North Carolina's commission when the organization failed to provide the money to cover the fighter purses up front, as required by their commission.
Though Shine President Devin Price blamed the reports about their North Carolina event as causing the concern with the Virgina commission, Broz-Vaughan stated that had the organization provided the surety bond those concerns would have been taken care of. In addition, the commission was wary of the one-night tournament format and the rules with which Shine was operating for it.
"We looked to see if there was a way we could make it work, though we don’t take kindly to that type of event in the state,” said Broz-Vaughan. "There just wasn’t enough level of detail in (Shine’s proposed rules) that we were comfortable with."
Penick's Analysis: Shine COO Jason Chambers has claimed online that the organization did secure the money for the fighter's purses and that the money was in an escrow account, but they either didn't or couldn't provide sufficient evidence to the commission to prove that was the case. The fact that they then tried to spin the license denial on any and all things except for them is even more ridiculous. The fighters on this card should be demanding payment up front with what continues to happen with this organization, and if they don't and continue to go forward with being a part of what's going on then it's on them if they get screwed over for payment. This entire situation gets more and more ridiculous as we get nearer and nearer to the event.
RELATED STORY: OTHER NEWS: All fighters on Friday's Shine Fights pay-per-view to be subject to 60-90 day suspensions: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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