(Video courtesy of TheFightNerd)

Our friends over at The Fight Nerd caught up with Gary Shaw recently and they asked the former EliteXC live events president what he thought about the latest incarnation of ProElite. Not surprisingly, Shaw didn’t hold back when describing the promotion’s chances in the current MMA landscape dominated by the UFC.

“I think it’s laughable. The people running it are  jokes. It’s not real and the only game in town is the UFC. I wouldn’t have been [interested in being involved with ProElite again]. All of my time is with boxing. Like I said, the only game in town is the UFC. You can’t beat them any longer. They are too entrenched,” Shaw explained. “They bought the next best thing, which was Strikeforce. Fedor’ s gone from the scene. So, right now it’s only the UFC. They’re miles ahead of everyone right now. It’s like us coming up with some fast food franchise and beating McDonald’s and Burger King. It’s not gonna happen.”

(It will be interesting to see how Viacom’s vested interest in the company will translate into its promotion of ProElite)

By Mike Russell

It looks like the proclamation UFC president Dana White made a few months ago that CBS will likely go head-to-head with his promotion again in the near future was right on the money.

Sources close to the promotion that was recently brought back from the verge of death by Stratus Media Group, who acquired a 95 percent ownership stake of the company in June, have informed CagePotato.com that ProElite is in the final stages of negotiations for a multi-year television deal with Viacom that will see its events broadcast on both Showtime and CBS starting in the first quarter of 2012.