The night of July 19th will boast one of the most action packed days in MMA history, if not THE most. UFC has long been the top promoter in the MMA world, having the most recognized brand with their name even used interchangeably with MMA by novice fans much to the annoyance of many die hards. So, when Affliction, the clothing line catapulted into popularity due in large part to fighters under contract with the UFC announced their entry into the MMA promotion world, MMA fans knew the UFC nor its head honcho, Dana White, wouldn’t take it lying down.

As a result of each organization trying to outdo the other (including UFC having their card aired for free against Affliction’s Pay Per View), MMA fans have one hell of a weekend coming up (if you’re looking for UFC Fight Night tickets or tickets to Affliction Banned, we still have them!) with two fight cards stacked with tons of fan favorites.

Affliction Banned was able to grab Fedor Emelianenko, who has long eluded the UFC, and put him up against Tim Sylvia all while gaining backing from Donald Trump. UFC sounded back by putting the man regarded as the best pound for pound fighter in the world into the octagon against James Irvin as well as putting together fights involving prominent fighters like Brandon Vera, Frankie Edgar and Hermes Franca.

While Fedor vs. Sylvia is enough to make any hard core MMA fan drool, we wonder if the Affliction Banned viewer numbers won’t be severely hurt by the fact that Fedor is only a “name” to avid MMA watchers, regardless of the talent he possesses and the UFC card is filled with many more “recognizable names” to the more mainstream MMA fan… and will be aired for free on Spike TV:

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Tags: Affliction, MMA, UFC
Posted in Sports |