Nicaragua's Ricardo Mayorga, center of confusion. Photo: Publicity
An MMA event, a 36-year-old boxer making his debut and a furious tycoon named Don King. With these three factors, Shine Fights 3, to have taken place last night, could not end smoothly. And it ended, without ever having started.
Shortly before the event was set to begin this Saturday, boxing authorities in the state of North Carolina upheld a veto from judge Marc Gold and canceled the show, which featured the fight between Ricardo Mayorga and former UFC fighter Din Thomas as a main event.
According to the judge in Florida, the court judged that Mayorga could not fight without the approval of Don King Productions, which holds a three-year contract for the fighter’s right, according to Sherdog.com
The judge further understood that Mayorga was not a legitimate MMA fighter and was not approved as one. Should he lose, Mayorga’s boxing career would be under threat.
The event then tried to move ahead by making the bout between Murilo Ninja and David heath the mais event. But the North Carolina boxing commission opted to close the doors to Crown Coliseum in Fayeteville and cancel the show.
It is not the first time an MMA show has been canceled in the last minute. Two-time world champion Márcio Pé de Pano had his MMA debut postponed once, due to cancelation of the event. The UFC, too, had legal problems once and had to change states at the last minute, at the end of the 1990s.
Check out the card for Shine Fights 3, which would have happened yesterday:
Ricardo Mayorga vs Din Thomas
Murilo “Ninja” Rua vs David Heath
Nick Thompson vs Eduardo Pamplona
Braulio Estima vs Rick Hawn
Alexandre Ferreira vs Jamal Patterson
Preliminaries
Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett vs Luis Azeredo
Zac George vs Mario Stapel