The brainchild of boxing promoter Gary Shaw, EliteXC is a decent MMA event that is still suffering some growing pains. Because of Elite's deal with Showtime, CBS, and it's willingness to cross promote with other organizations, it has become the UFC's current strongest rival stateside. Held on February 10th, 2007 in Southhaven, Mississippi, "Destiny" was their first event.

The DVD edits out all of the live show lags. The intro is kept short, the fighter ringwalks are completely excised, and the commentators are, for the most part, a complete mystery which makes it a tad strange when they decide to show the formerly disembodied Bill Goldberg and Mauro Ranallo in a bit of pre-main fight banter an hour and twenty-four minutes in.

The main card opens with lightweights Noons-Bennet, Noons being an up and coming prospect with grand delusions of a triple threat championship MMA, kickboxing, and pro boxing career and Bennet being a notorious fighter best known for his antics, long arrest record, and one punch KO power. Then comes Carano-Kedzie, the kickboxing Carano being the Elite's cover girl model face of women's MMA and Kedzie the undersized gamer. Both matches are pretty good, the former being a one-punch KO, the latter a mostly one-sided three rounder.

Loiseau-Villesenor is a middleweight matchup of two guys who seemed to float around the B level, especially "The Crow" Loiseau, who quickly saw his fortunes take a downturn after a losing shot at UFC champ Rich Franklin. Then comes the HW match of Silva-Correra, a standard pairing of an up and comer, "Bigfoot" Silva, versus the journeyman in "Cabbage" Correra. Neither match is particularly good, Loiseau gets taken down and (too) carefully outgrappled for three ho-hum rounds, while Silva gets an easy opponent to dominate and finish within the first.

The main event is Renzo Gracie-Frank Shamrock, a paring of two men from MMA royal families. Unfortunately, the match ends up being quite controversial. Underdog Gracie takes down the former UFC champ and well-rounded MMA prototype with relative ease. But, a second round illegal knee to the back of the head by Shamrock apparently reels Gracie and calls a halt to the bout. While the blow is no doubt illegal, it's impact seemed somewhat questionable despite the fact that Renzo has a justified reputation for not being a quitter (see his infamous Pride bout with "Gracie Hunter" Kazushi Sakuraba).

This inaugural Elite event had a silly, much criticized, and quickly abandoned 15 second ground rule warning. Basically, the idea was that if the fighters were on the ground and there was no action, the referee would call a warning, then if there was still no significant action, the ref would signal to trigger a 15 second counter and when the counter ran out the fighters would be automatically stood up. It basically showed the organizations ignorance when it comes to MMA. Lack of action is at the discretion of the ref anyway, and they have always warned fighters they will be stood if there is no action, so instating a clock was just superfluous. One imagines it would actually encourage stalling because why improve position or try to lock on a sub if you knew you'd be separated after fifteen seconds regardless? I think it was only utilized once during this event, and it wasn't even applied correctly.

The DVD: Image.

Picture:

Anamorphic Widescreen. Opening credits look amazingly sharp and vivid, but come fight time you get some standard live show quirks like iffy arena lighting. Still the image is okay and relatively detailed with no glaring transfer defects.

Sound:

2.0 Stereo. Strictly standard territory here. Unremarkable mix, but its not like outside the bumper video packages there is much room for audio wizardry in sporting events.

Extras:

A second disc contains the undercard/prelim fights which were aired for free through the ProElite website, thus the commentary crew makes some nods to the online audience, live polls, chatroom banter, etc. The fights are Catrell-Persey, Pyle-Ebenez, Nasal-Vasquez, Shackleford-Berto, and Gates-Fukuda. Really only the Nasal-Vasquez fight has close, well-rounded action. The rest are either snoozers or blowouts where (mostly local) opponents were overmatched against superior pros. Also, a so-awful-it's-great is the inclusion of Jared "$cala" Shaw's backstage footage. For those that originally watched it, the promoters son, who obviously has nepotism to thank for landing the gig, and his awkward wannabe cool antics were a source of much derision. Watch $cala get choked out by Frank Shamrock, who was quite bemused by how easy it was, drool on himself, then try to act like he's not embarrassed.

In addition you'll also get--- Fighter Bios.--- Photo Galleries.--- Rules & Glossary.--- Behind the Scenes Video (30:49). The video segments are great, fighter training, heavy on great anecdotes with Bennett and Gracie being charismatic standouts.

Conclusion:

I guess you cannot expect any event to go off without a hitch its first time out and "Destiny" certainly proved this with a controversial finish to its main event. If the fights aren't the most spectacular, the presentation is at least serviceable and the disc has a decent round of extras. The incentive is there for hardcore MMA fans to purchase the disc, but for the majority of viewers I don't think the fights are very memorable, competitive, or likely to get many repeat viewings, so the overall recommendation is a rental.