There are times when it takes a while to come down off of a buzz, and for the second time, a fight card presented by a t-shirt company has done just that. The internet will be abuzz, as usual, with talk of production values, buy rates and attendance. I think pushing all of that aside for a moment what you will see is an ultimately satisfying fight card, with each of the fights providing excitement rarely seen on your average $45 PPV card. Capped off by a fight for the ages, an emotional rollercoaster that was Andrei Arlovski challenging Fedor Emelianenko for the WAMMA Heavyweight Championship.

Affliction’s second card has been plagued since the day it was announced, being cancelled due to poor ticket sales and Affliction trying to seal a deal with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions to help create a buzz around the show. The talk was always that Fedor was not a draw in the United States, but when push came to shove, the card not featuring Fedor was not selling tickets. When Barnett vs. Arlovski was no longer the featured main event, instead Arlovski vs. Fedor a few fans grumbled that Barnett was the better fighter and more likely the better fight for Fedor.

Instead Affliction chose the more memorable UFC Heavyweight Champion to headline against Fedor, and ultimately, it was an incredible decision. Not many fights get me excited anymore. Mixed Martial Arts is growing, and as a part of the growth comes a lot of cards featuring a lot of good, not great fighters facing off against each other. Even if the fighters facing off are great, the match ups are not exciting, they are competitive. They are guys with similar skillsets cancelling each other out, or simply guys with opposing skillsets trying to avoid the other’s strength. But this fight was different, this was two guys who aren’t afraid to engage, who are explosive, and easily the best heavyweights in the world. 

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What’s cooler than a “Scarface: The World Is Yours” snowglobe? Well… let’s be honest, pretty much nothing. Really. I mean, that’s pretty much it. I can’t top it. But I hope my picks for the headliners for this weekend’s Affliction PPV are worth a read anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes you don’t need words to express excitement. 

I shit you not. If you understand how the finance markets work in the United States you understand just how surreal this is. I can safely say that this was the work of the Donald, but I am still completely baffled by this.

While it is kind of amazing to see Fedor and Tito ringing the opening bell for the Nasdaq market, something that is primarily reserved for politicians, board members of large public companies, companies with a new IPO and so on, having a fight promoter and fighter declare one of the world’s premier markets as open is just weird. Not only is it weird, it is a strange PR move. If you think about this logically, what fight fan outside of your random finance nerds really pay attention to the Nasdaq opening bell daily? Affliction tends to spend a lot of money and time on promoting their shows in places where their audience could not care less.

Do you care about this? Will your average UFC fan who might be interested in this show but has yet to see a television or magazine advertisement see this and get excited? Outside of the “EDOR IS COMING” ads during the last EliteXC show and Arlovski fighting there has been no mainstream press for this event. As Zach Arnold has pointed out, Oscar De La Hoya is the center of attention for the recent press conferences, with passing mention to some obscure ‘Martial Arts’ show he is promoting. Merely a parlor trick, a new passing interest for the biggest name in boxing.

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Affliction’s second offering, “Day of Reckoning” is right around the corner, and it sort of seems like there is very little in the way of advertising muscle put into it. While one could easily argue that the first Affliction show was not advertised heavily either, there was at least a bit more hype surrounding the show. It even seems like the websites that pushed Affliction: Banned heavily in the lead up to it in July (this one included) have not shown the same levels of support. Let’s face it, this card isn’t the blockbuster that the first card was.

Affliction have been a bit more sparse with sending out interviews and promotional material to the media that supported them the first time around as well. That said, once in a while they send something that is just outrageous, today was one of those times. Today they sent around a press release ‘Demystifying’ the great Fedor. Did you know that Fedor likes American action movies? Apparently he hasn’t seen any in a while, as his favorite actor is Bruce Willis. Here is, in list format, why Fedor is a real man’s man.

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In a move that has to be considered stunning at the least, its been announced that Affliction is loaning out Roy Nelson and Andrei Arlovski to EliteXC for the October 4th event roughly two weeks away. Its a move that pleases Arlovski by giving him a fight and a lot of money, it gives EXC a fight for hardcore fans, it provides CBS one of the top heavyweights in the world and a recognizable name for UFC fans, and so, so much more. How much more? Well, depends how much speculation you want to put in to all this.

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Regardless of how the announcement works out, we can all agree that the RING magazine shirts are going to be awesome!

Affliction today made their big announcement, and amidst the hyperbole, conjecture and everything else, what it breaks down seems to be about right, if not a little disappointing to fans. After Affliction canceled their October show due to what seemed to be poor ticket sales, they announced that they would be bringing forth some huge announcement today, which seemingly would involve Golden Boy Productions. Well, they did.

Affliction will now be the official apparel company of Golden Boy events and Ring magazine. As a part of this deal, Golden Boy has decided to co-promote shows with Affliction. What this actually means has not really been explained all too well, but once again, this can only leave us to stew about it and come up with possible scenarios. Will Golden Boy provide undercards to Affliction shows? Will Affliction provide undercards to major boxing cards? Will they combined put on mediocre fighting cards? Will this involve HBO in some way?

While there are many of us that are fans of both MMA and boxing, these two sides do not always work well together. There are still many boxing fans that see MMA as a passing fad, just some cheap, unsophisticated garbage for the masses. Then you have the MMA fan that sees boxing as the old dinosaur that is going to be extinct soon due to the new, more evolved and somehow more humane sport of Mixed Martial Arts. Both sides do have their merits, but I’m not sure if they make good bed fellows in this case. This wouldn’t be the first time a promoter has attempted to toss together boxing and MMA, or even the first time somebody has mixed MMA with something else, but history isn’t smiling too kindly on this. For some reason I am thinking of U-File Camp shows, where they would blend together MMA, sparring matches, demonstrations and pro wrestling and how tepid the response was to that, or K-1 shows that featured MMA matches to supplement the lack of name value their current generation of kickboxers has with fans. 

I know that I’m willing to give this a chance, but I’m not exactly sure of the pull that Affliction has right now to make this work, or exactly how well these two will work together. This could either fail miserably or could bring this concept to the mainstream and get a good buzz going and attract fans to both sports. 

Affliction today announced that their next show on Oct. 11 will feature yet another metal performance. This time? Aging Godfather of Metal Ozzy Osbourne and his band will take the stage. The last Affliction picked up some reasonable flack from the Zuffa supporters for taking away from the “pure sport” atmosphere including Megadeth to their line-up. That aside, Megadeth played a great 3-song set and complimented the show perfectly, helping bring forward the style of show Affliction wants to present.  Read the rest of this entry »

After July 19th, Affliction has set the bar incredibly high, maybe even too high for their own good. Yesterday, Affliction Day of Reckoning was announced, officially. While there are conflicting reports about fighters being asked to take pay cuts, it seems like that isn’t the case with this upcoming card (so far) due to the (relative to the last show) lack of name fighters. The show is being headlined by Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovski, after Affliction had been hyping up Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski for the WAMMA title.   Read the rest of this entry »