Immediately following the post-fight press conference for EliteXC and CBS’ Saturday Night Fights this past weekend in Sunrise, Florida, I was able to catch up with EliteXC Vice President Jared Shaw to discuss a number of pressing topics coming out of the fight card.

During the course of the interview, Shaw addressed his reaction towards referee Tony Wragge following the stoppage of the Kimbo Slice vs. Seth Petruzelli main event; the process in which a replacement was chosen and if canceling the event was ever under consideration; his feelings about Ken Shamrock being medically disqualified; and more.

Sam Caplan: At what point were you alerted that there might be a problem with the main event?

Jared Shaw: It’s tough for me to say. I got a call, I want to say, around 4:30 or 5:30, that there may be a problem. I ran down (to the arena) and found out that Shamrock had hurt himself. We had waited for him to come here because we didn’t know. Ken’s a gamer — a showman and a fighter — so we didn’t know. It could have been psychological warfare against Kimbo. He could think that we would tell him there’s no fight and then he would show up with no laceration. Or, how bad was it? Could we pull this fight off? We definitely wanted this fight to go.

We had a meeting with him when he arrived and we then right back with him to his dressing room. The commission looked at him and he had a laceration and they weren’t going to let the fight go. And that’s honestly where it stopped. He wanted to fight but his private doctor didn’t want him to fight. (The commission) said “no” and we had to make that move right away to figure out how we were going to save this event.

Sam Caplan: If Seth Petruzelli hadn’t taken the fight and if maybe Aaron Rosa hadn’t been a viable backup option, would the card had to have been canceled if there was no fight featuring Kimbo?

Jared Shaw: No, we would have went on with the card. We would have offered fans their money back and I’m not positive, but I believe we had even offered fans their money back because the opponent had changed. Not one fan wanted their money back, which shows you what a big sell Kimbo Slice is. But I think we did fine and it was a great card.

Check out Five Ounces of Pan above for more...

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