It is being reported by officials at Shine Fights that UFC/PRIDE veteran Marcus “Maximus” Aurelio has sustained an injury while training for this weekend’s Shine Fights Lightweight Grand Prix and has been forced to vacate his spot in the tournament.
Taking his place will be fellow submission specialist and UFC veteran Shannon Gugerty. Gugerty who has a record of 10-2 has a notable win over Cub Swanson and competed five times for the UFC.
We smell bullshit.
It was reported earlier in the week that Shine Fights had to move their originally scheduled venue of the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Va. for their lightweight gran prix to the First Council Casino in Newkirk, Okla due to the Virginia state commission denying them a promoters license. The reason? State officials were not happy that fans had the ability to chose the opening round match ups of the tournament.
With the new venue set in place, Shine Fights is attempting to sidestep commission sanctioning problems by holding their 8 man tournament on tribal land. The state athletic commission of Oklahoma has no jurisdiction on tribal land but issued a warning to all participants involved, ” they (participants) will prohibited from getting a fighter’s license for 60 days per the state’s rules on unsanctioned competition. Any actions toward participants will go on the Association of Boxing Commission’s national registry and may be honored by other state athletic commissions.”
With this set in motion, a already signed bout between Marcus Aurelio and Shinya Aoki for Dream on September 25th was announced last weekend. With the threat of the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission of barring any fighters who competes for 60 days it is in our opinion that Auerlio scratched for a reason.
What you may ask? For one, a fighter who gets barred from a athletic commission can have that ban taken into effect by any other sanctioning body in the United States. Just take a look at Antonio Margarito. He might be worried about this, but a Dream payday against a much bigger profile opponent may by the real culprit. Though Aurelio has a exclusive contract with Shine Fights, there is language in his contract that allows him to fight in other organizations but with prior permission from Shine. As of current, this permission has not been granted but the vague language can allow Aurelio to compete in Japan and deal with the consequences later.
As far as Shine goes, their tournament will still continue on, with fighters such as Rich “Cleat” Crunkilton, “Alley Cat” Kyle Baker, James Warfield, Drew Fickett, Carlo Prater, “Krazy Horse” Bennett participating this Saturday, September 11th on PPV.
