Affliction’s Holy War
Posted by Dave Walsh on July 20th, 2008
On July 19th, Affliction, the company known for its rather gaudy clothing line launched a Holy War against the world of Mixed Martial Arts, the UFC in particular, led by Megadeth and the world’s best heavyweights. While it wasn’t their intention originally to jump right in to rivaling the UFC head-to-head, it was UFC that immediately fired back planning their own show with easily the best pound for pound fighter in the world, Anderson Silva headlining. Affliction Banned looked a lot like their clothing looks: rough around the edges, disorganized and not for everybody. The card that they assembled was epic in proportions, with three huge heavyweight fights, featuring a former PRIDE Heavyweight Champion, four former UFC Heavyweight Champions and a former IFL Heavyweight standout. This was undoubtedly huge.
The show has come and gone now, and the reaction is decidedly mixed; you were either enamored with the fights they put on or you were too busy staring at UFC’s new graphics and the stability their card offered to get too invested in Affliction. UFC was presented as it always was last night, the presentation that they have built up since the 90’s now after trying everything in the book and finally settling on what they have now. The show featured some revamped graphics to freshen the look up a bit, but it was still business as usual for the UFC. This isn’t a bad thing, it simply is what it is. Affliction wasn’t the same sort of complete package that UFC was, no doubt. While talking to Marc Staehling as he was in attendance, it was clear that the beginning of the show was a giant disaster. The first fight had both of the fighters come out, wait around, then return to the back, only to be brought out again. The second fight was announced and then didn’t happen. The third fight that was announced, which was actually the second fight to take place, happened nearly halfway into the second hour of the event and aired “live” on FSN (if your local FSN wasn’t airing a local interest Major League Baseball game). Clearly something wasn’t going right with the event. Things picked up of course, and by the time the PPV started, the show moved along smoothly. The production level wasn’t UFC caliber, but it seems like a lot of the non-mainstream media is talking about this, while people like the respected Dave Meltzer and other mainstream media sites are looking at the content of the show.
If you watched the show, you know what Affliction was going for with the production, they weren’t looking for a polished show that you’d see on ESPN with smooth graphic fade-ins, bright lighting and a professional announce team. They were going for something “edgy” and more “rock n’ roll” (or heavy metal for that matter), only for it to not exactly work. Instead at times it looked unprofessional and confusing, such as the odd dimming of the lights during staredowns and ring introductions. So all in all, it didn’t work, but it wasn’t awful. When I think of awful I think of your standard KOTC or even YAMMA-level of production, which are just abysmal. For a company’s first MMA show, it beats any of the other start up companies we’ve seen in the past few years (WFA, EliteXC, Strikeforce, YAMMA, etc.), but it wasn’t the UFC.
There were lessons for them to learn in this show, and hopefully corrected by the next show. It is noble to want to present something different, but a lot of what they wanted to be different was simply bush league and doesn’t exactly fit with a fight card. If you want to keep a live performance from a band or multiple bands, that can work. I know it helped enhance the show for me, it was a good distraction in between fights as opposed to getting what would most likely be poor analysis from Frank Trigg and Jay Glazer, or more Big John in the back looking like a goof segments. What they don’t need to learn is how to put together a card, as the card delivered; a passable, even fun undercard, three great fights on the top of the card with a lot of buzz around each fight. I know that I walked away from the show pleased, and minor issues aside look forward to what will hopefully be a card just as good, with some improvements on the front end to help enhance the experience.
What we, the fans get, is some actual competition for UFC. There is no doubt their production could use work, but the caliber of the fights they put on should leave no doubt in anybody’s mind that Affliction means business.
July 21st, 2008 at 1:03 am
my only complaint is the ring , watching the fighters fall through the ropes and hit there head on the apron is unessesary , the square ring is fine but id rather a cage , other than that the fights were excellant and if they sign tito and randy they will only get better
July 21st, 2008 at 2:03 am
There was no former IFL Heavyweight champ fighting on this card. Rothwell never fought to be crowned champ, Big Country is the one and only IFL Heavyweight champ.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:18 am
Thanks Justin, knew I blundered something, but couldn’t remember what.
The ring did show its flaws tonight. At least in PRIDE you have the ringside crew doing their best to keep the fights inside of the ring when stuff starts to spill out. The height of this was Babalu/Whitehead where this was a continual issue.
I think the ring and cage each have their merits as well as drawbacks, honestly.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Whitehead is such a jock idiot. Like he didn’t know Babalu was going to fall out of the ring if he kept pushing… Totally preventable, but the fighters have to actually have a few brain cells, in order for the fight to stay in the ring.
July 21st, 2008 at 5:18 pm
They would do well to not book Whitehead or Lindland again. Too bad those are considered American draws for them… I really hope they get everything straightened out so that Aleks can fight in the future, that would have been the icing on the cake for this card.
The production was bad, but other than laugh at it, there were no really painful errors, everything was pretty minor, like not miking up the crowd, not getting the sound to work properly, and so on.
Affliction needs to team up with Elite XC, as well as do some consulting with a Japanese promotion. Those guys are the real pros of production values, not to mention classy (the snow for Fedor) and zany entrances.
July 21st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
The entrances could have used a bit more, but maybe they couldn’t. If a lot of the complaints were that the show was too “showy” and stylized (poorly, mind you), maybe the toned down entrances would be fine. They just need to dim the lights and use a spotlight at least.
I was going to say that they should stay away from EliteXC, because I feel they’d get manipulated, but anything for better cards, honestly.
Lindland is simply getting old and Whitehead isn’t that great. Lindland gassed out early on, which was depressing. Not the Lindland of old.
I don’t know if I see Aleks being licensed to fight in the US any time soon. He failed this medical and there is a good chance wouldn’t be able to pass any medical exam in the US. Obviously I’d love for him to fight, but the safety of his opponents (and himself) is more important.