By: Rich Bergeron
It's hard to wrap my head around the idea that a guy with the moniker "Tommy Toe Hold" recently had the guts and the balls to retell the whole sordid saga of Xyience 20 years after it all went down. He is the narrator on this recent "MMA On Point" YouTube video:
The Weirdest UFC Scandal You Never Knew About - YouTube
I was caught in the middle of the story as a reporter-turned-lawyer all those years ago. Tommy tells his YouTube audience all of the dirty details behind my allegations. What's left out is pretty damn entertaining and shocking, too.
I worked closely with the bankruptcy trustee in this case, traveling by bus from Massachusetts to meet him in Illinois shortly after Xyience's bankruptcy court proceedings started. He debriefed me for two days. I gave him much of the information he needed to pursue formal civil charges against the Fertittas (Zyen, LLC). He also uncovered an email in which a $150 million offer to buy Xyience, made by Cott beverages, was discussed by Fertitta Front Man Bill Bullard. My counterclaims to the initial $25 million case against me brought by Xyience were settled in my favor for $10,000.
I still took a motion for sanctions (coincidentally asking for $150 million to be paid to the shareholders) against multiple involved parties to the absolute furthest point in the courts I could make it to after getting that small victory. I might have been able to dispose of the baseless $25 million claims against me earlier if I was able to use this bit of evidence:
Xyience Co-CEOs Admit They Peruse My Web-Site To Figure out What Happened at Xyience
But, in the end, the judge ruled that those were settlement negotiations and inadmissible in court. Thankfully, the court of public opinion has different rules. The true story really isn't as much about how the Fertittas alone ravaged the company as it is about the long line of individuals and entities who passed the company around and committed serious financial abuse while controlling it. I often refer to what happened as multiple scams unfolding within the original scam.
The full site is worth checking out here, and you can learn so much more about all the curious and conniving players involved in this thrilling tale of corporate greed and deception on these pages. Tommy is only scratching the surface in this video, and I hope he doesn't get blacklisted by the UFC as a result. If anyone would like to interview me about this case or coordinate on producing an epic miniseries for Netflix, email me at rich.bergeron@gmail.com
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