Palace Fighting Championship folds

The Palace Fighting Championship is no more. Well, at least in its most recent form.

MMAWeekly.com on Monday night was able to confirm with multiple sources that the Palace Fighting Championship has immediately ceased operating events at the Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino in Lemoore, Calif., severing a longstanding relationship. The promotion's web site has also been shut down.

All indications are that the split was not amicable.

Sources indicate that PFC president Christian Printup still owns the rights to the promotion and its contracts, so it is possible that the PFC could resurface elsewhere, most assuredly under a different name. Printup, however, was not immediately available for comment.

It is also believed that Tachi Palace officials are already negotiating with other promotions to fill the void left with the exodus of the PFC. The current frontrunners appear to be King of the Cage, Cage Combat Fighting Championships, and possibly boxing promoter Goossen Tutor Promotions. Tachi Palace officials were also unavailable at the time of publication.

PFC began running events at the Tachi Palace in January of 2007, itself filling the hole in the schedule left by World Extreme Cagefighting. The PFC operated 19 events in Lemoore between its debut and its most recent event just last week. Two more PFC events that had been scheduled for this year have been removed from the Tachi Palace event calendar.

The Tachi Palace has long been a home for mixed martial arts. The WEC was born in Lemoore in June 2006 when the casino operated as The Palace Indian Gaming Center. The promotion held nearly all of its events there, including during the transition from a gaming center to the full-fledged Tachi Palace Hotel and Casino.

The WEC was purchased by the owners of the Ultimate Fighting Championship in late 2006 and subsequently moved to the UFC's home base of Las Vegas.

Mixed martial arts has been a very successful undertaking for Tachi Palace, so it is likely that the promotion will move swiftly to put a new promotion on its schedule.