How I’ll remember Affliction
Posted by Alan Conceicao on July 24th, 2009
So, today, Affliction as an MMA promoter died. It went out in about the most shameful fashion possible: On its knees. After the loss of Barnett and Showtime’s disapproval of any replacements, the show was doomed into cancellation, leaving guys without big paydays who may not have necessarily deserved them. Ignoring that for a moment, I have my own personal feelings about them:
-The key mistake was to never poach a guy who mattered. Tito teased them but they spent millions on Arlovski. When guys like GSP started to come up for contract renewals, they weren’t around talking money. That could have brought them the attention they needed. They paid a lot for other guys though.
-Their two shows were great. Some of the better PPVs over the last couple of years, stacked with all sorts of wild matchups. The third was that way…until this week. But you know what? I didn’t spend a dime on that. The others I got my money’s worth on. Most of us complaining or cheering their demise didn’t spend a dime either. Don’t lie.
-Someone needed money fast. Business deals can often wait a weekend. For Affliction to give up immediately because some guy was at a hotel that probably has a fax machine couldn’t help them tells me something was up on their end.
-Its for the best for MMA fans assuming that the guys in the company that people want to see show up in the UFC. Gomi won’t. Babalu probably won’t. Mousasi probably won’t. Jorge Santiago probably won’t. I don’t predict what will happen with Fedor, but history ain’t looking good. Right now, you’re looking at maybe Vitor Belfort coming in. That’s nice and all, but he probably wouldn’t have beaten Santiago this weekend (yes, I’m serious) and he’s in really tough with almost anyone in the UFC’s middleweight division. Honestly, he might lose to Alan Belcher. I’d actively pick Akiyama over him. From the perspective of seeing good fighters against one another, we might actually lose out. I will hope, however, that we don’t.
July 25th, 2009 at 3:43 am
Eh, if they don’t go to the UFC they’ll probably sign with Strike Force which is almost as good.
July 25th, 2009 at 7:50 am
Anytime an major MMA organizations fails that could have provided competition for Komnissar White and choice for fighters and fans that is NOT a good thing.
July 26th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Well, there goes probably the last MMA bout I’ll be excited for.
July 26th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Which fight was that, Dan?
July 26th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Buentello vs. Yvel
July 27th, 2009 at 2:05 am
Tom: The fight I wanted to see back in 2006, Barnett v. Fedor. Over the last few years I’ve become less and less excited about up and coming fighters and it was really the last few dream matches that were keeping me interested. Yes, Couture v. Nogueira is coming up, but both fighters are so banged up it hardly seems worth it. Fedor never lost his aura and Barnett still looked sharp. With that fight scrapped, likely consigned permanently to the junk heap, I can’t think of a single upcoming fight, scheduled or potential, that I truly care about. It makes official what’s been the case for about two years now, I’ve lost interest in MMA.
July 27th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Sorry to hear it, Dan. I can relate — while I’m still somehwat excited to see the P4P entrants like Fedor, Machida, Penn, and GSP, it seems like they’re so far ahead of their respective packs that it’s not even worth laying down PPV $$$. (As an aside — despite what Alan infers, yes I did pay for Affliction and happily so.)
Couture/Noguiera isn’t doing it for me either. Nog looked so terrible last time out that he convinced people Mir is an elite striker. Maybe it was staph, maybe it’s because Bustamante (etc) aren’t around to push him at his new gym, maybe it’s just Father Time.
Ugh.
Sad news here; Atencio came up with some excellent bouts and as Salaverry inferred in our interview, the UFC’s monopoly is terrible for the sport.
July 28th, 2009 at 3:36 am
No word of a lie, I bought both Affliction PPVs and was going to buy the third. I generally only spring for the big UFC shows but really did want Affliction to do well.
Then again, after the demise of WCW when I stopped watching wrestling I bought TNA PPVs for a few weeks because I wanted to ’support’ something to be like WCW, and sadly, it wasn’t anything like it and killed wrestling for me. I guess in the same vein, a lot of people want(ed) Affliction to be PRIDE on US soil and it wasn’t.