Jan 23 2009
Afflicted
If you are a Mixed Martial Arts fan, January is certainly the month for you as there will be four Major Events from three top Promotions. But, there is still a slight problem for one of the organizations in the mix of the largest month in MMA History.
That problem is for the Affliction Promotion, that is already experiencing problems for over-spending and really having one marketable asset. Fedor Emelianenko is one of the best Pound-for-Pound fighters in all of MMA and maybe in the world of combat sports.
Fedor is associated with Affliction, but has only one fight left after his January 24th fight with former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski. If Fedor wins, then the next opponent for the Russian superstar will not be easy to pick seeing as the only fighters that Fedor has not beat are in the UFC.
The UFC has played Affliction well, and I must say I am very impressed, Fedor can destroy former UFC Champions all he wants, but they are former Champs for a reason. Randy Couture, Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, and Frank Mir are currently the fighters that are all on the merge of eclipsing Emelianenko’s popularity.
Fedor can not fight every month, and Affliction has based there promotion on Fedor’s popularity so while he sits at home, UFC Heavyweights are currently fighting eachother. Now, if Fedor is defeated by Arlovski, well Affliction will likely go the way of EliteXC.
Did Affliction not learn anything from those crazy EliteXC people who based the whole promotion on the swinging arms of Kimbo Slice? Now the UFC is smashing Affliction in between two cards highlighted by Rich Franklin vs Dan Henderson first, and then B.J. Penn vs Georges St.Pierre.
Also, the UFC owns the WEC which will feature Urjiah Faber vs Jens Pulver, and Jamie Varner vs Donald Cerrone on January 25th. Up until the month of March, the UFC will feature fighters such as Joe Lauzon, Diego Sanchez, Joe Stevenson, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, and Shane Carwin.
That is what is next for the UFC while the Affliction is at a fight to fight process based on Fedor’s results after a bout. The UFC and WEC are on a set schedule, while Affliction has to be servants to Emelianenko’s scheduling and future plans.
Unfortunately for Affliction, the forecast does not look pretty for their Promotion and things will not get better seeing as they are struggling to sell out their event on Saturday. I am all for Affliction, but it is easy to see the EliteXC debacle repeating with Affliction.
J.M.Saucedo
