Little-known Seth Petruzelli is continuing to make waves in the wake of his stunning 14 second knockout of infamous street-brawler Kimbo Slice. During a radio interview on Monday, the fighter intimated that EliteXC officials bribed him with significant incentives to stand and trade with Slice instead of following his original game plan of getting the inexperienced brawler to the ground.

“The promoters kind of hinted to me, and they gave me the money to stand and trade with him,” he told “The Monsters in Orlando” radio show. “They didn’t want me to take him down, let’s just put it that way. It was worth my while to try to stand up and punch with him.”

Petruzelli further explained it was his original intention to get Slice to the ground and take advantage of his weak wrestling and submission defense. EliteXC officials must have known however that Petruzelli, a journeyman in the sport, would surely succumb to bribery.

While other more legitimate leagues, such as the UFC, do give incentives to fighters for putting on more entertaining fights, they always come in the form of “fight of the night” bonuses or other skills-based encouragements. Never before has it been announced that promoters actually paid a fighter extra to fight a certain way.

While it may not seem like a huge deal, this type of action is as close to fixing a fight as you can get without actually fixing the fight. Convincing a man outweighed by 35 pounds by his opponent to fight to his opponent’s strengths, while ignoring his best shot at winning the fight, is certainly an underhanded tactic and clearly an effort to keep the company’s cash-cow producing it’s milk.

The scandal has come at a horrific time for the organization that is now scrambling to find an angle to market itself now that the Kimbo Slice sideshow has come to a screeching hault. It has also come at a terrible time for mixed martial arts in general as the sport tries to convince mainstream audiences of its merits.

Petruzelli has since retracted his statements, claiming it was in fact the “fight of the night” and “knockout” bonuses that he was speaking about, and not an under-the-table agreement. Still, an organization with constant inconsistencies and sideshow cards is not to be trusted. Even if the aforementioned bribe truly did not occur, EliteXC has been asking for this type of news to leak since its inception as a sensationalistic mockery of the sport.