Affliction Cancels August 1 “Trilogy” Event
Affliction on Friday announced the cancellation of its August 1 “Trilogy” event, which was to take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and air live on pay-per-view, citing its inability to fight a suitable opponent to face Fedor Emelianenko in the event’s headliner.
Emelianenko’s original opponent, Josh Barnett, failed to be licensed for the fight earlier this week after testing positive for steroids.
Numerous possible opponents were mentioned in recent days, including Vitor Belfort, Bobby Lashley, Brett Rogers, and Jeff Monson, but ultimately the promotion decided it was better to scrap the card, while vowing to promote future shows.
The press release announcing the cancellation is below:
Seal Beach, California (July 24, 2009) – The highly anticipated fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett at the Affliction Trilogy MMA show has been cancelled. The mega fight was scheduled to take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim on August 1st. The unforeseen license denial of Josh Barnett gave Affliction limited time to find a replacement and adequately promote the new main event.
“Finding an opponent for the number one ranked MMA heavy weight champion in such a short period of time was a huge endeavor and I’m thrilled at the amount of fighters willing to take on this challenge,” said Tom Atencio, vice president of Affliction Entertainment. “But in the end, we just didn’t have enough time to promote a new fight to our standards.”
Affliction is deeply disappointed that the under card is also cancelled through no fault of its own. Affliction stands behind the company’s brands and delivers premium products to the most passionate and loyal customers. Affliction’s first priority is to ensure that all future events live up to the company’s high standards.
Ticket holders for the canceled event should contact Ticketmaster or ticketmaster.com for a refund.
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Sucks for the people who were going to this event. And for the fighters on the undercard…bummer dude! It’s not your fault that this company revolves around 1 fighter.
They should put mousasi vs sobral on the strikeforce card …… like they did for elitexc with AA . Now that would spice up the card even more .
How about Belfort vs Diaz ???
Good idea about the mousasi/ sobral fight, that would be great. Not so much a good idea about the Belfort/ Diaz fight, I’m pretty sure that neither party would agree to this.
I read that as Belfort/dbiz at first and thought you hated me.
Well… Uhh… Now that you mention it….
Ok, I’ll do it for a MERE $4000. If it takes place in the dessert line at Golden Trough. I mean corral.
awful
Honestly, if a year later after being in business you can’t put together a last minute fight, fold. I like watching Affliction events, but this just pi$$es me off. If Cote could step up last minute and fill in for Guy Mezger, I think any of the candidated should have done so. Sad.
i think mousasi should fight fedor
I wonder how Dana feels about this …
Somewhere Dana White is laughing his ass off.
Dana is probably stoked, what a tool. Either way, i’d love to see Mousasi take care of Sobral. (At least im hoping that will happen)
Now that I’ve read it here that Affliction:Trilogy is cancelled, I’ll believe it and comment.
Nothing against any other site, but after the Kimo thing and the Wand-Bisping thing, I’m pretty skeptical about these recent firebomb press releases.
First off, Affliction did the smart thing.
They have one fight left with Fedor, and they don’t want to waste it on a lackluster fight they don’t have adequate time to promote. Fedor is for all intents and purposes Affliction’s only draw, and if he goes the whole shooting match closes down.
This way, they live to fight another day, so to speak.
Second, even though Atencio takes his shots from the frenzied, his statement was pretty classy [San Diego], in that he made sure the “blame” was shifted onto the promotion [and minimally on Barnett] for not being able to have sufficient marketing time for a new main event, rather than off-handedly disrespecting any of the men who stepped up and offered to take a short-notice fight with a man who MIGHT be the best MMA fighter on the planet.
Third, yes, if you listen very carefully you can hear Dana Fu<king White laughing his bald mother-fu<king a$$ off…
Blame it on Barnett.
I blame Brock Lesnar!!!
Seriously?! Where did that come from?
Justin – thats OT1 having a goof at my expense
It’s interesting that Attencio went out of his way to explain that he was thrilled at the number of fighters willing to step in and face Fedor. If there in fact were legit opponents willing to step in, why not have them step in? Surely a weaker main event along with the rest of the regular card still taking place would have been FAR LESS damaging than pulling the cord on the event altogether. Afterall Fedor would still be on the card. Or did Fedor reject all those willing opponents (understandably)? It just doesn’t make sense that they would just close down shop on the event regardless of whether or not the company revolves around one fighter (who still would have fought that night) assuming Fedor didn’t nix the plans himself.
To me, this is a huge middle finger and a big F.U. from the company to the rest of the fighters on that card. If Fedor, who the company revolves around, was willing to fight a replacement, I see no reason to cancel the event.
he was willing to find a replacement, but you have to understand what his “handlers”/management does guys. fedor may be down to fight anyone, but his management will allow him to sign for the fight only if they are certain fedor can win. if they have doubts they make unreasonable demands. thats whats going on with the fedor-ufc deal. his management is making insane demands. i was looking forward to the day after affliction 3 so we could find out what fedor was going to do. he still is under contract with affliction for one more fight, so that still sucks.
this smells like a dana white product!!! 1st he paid off kimbo to take a fluke punch and the crumble of elite xc happens and mysteriously kimbo is on TUF10, now dana pays barnett off to have something in his system that he (didnt know about, yeah right) Affliction cancels promotion. Dana white is a wicked business man, got to love it
I know MarkusJ is joking but please…PLEASE tell me you are being facetious.
dbiz – I can almost hear your blood pressure spiking as you read this stuff.
Please remember to drink some water and take deep breaths…
Dana probably paid Barnett to take steroids and test positive in the first place. =p
smitty, why would barnett agree to that with dana? how does he stand to gain anything from it? by testing positive, he more than likely is suspended for a year[or more] from fighting in the states. i dont think he would gain as much money by fighting in japan, and if he does go to japan and fight once over there for any promotion, i believe that gets him an indefinite/lifetime ban from competing[sp] in the states. hwo does barnett gain anything?
Actually, I think Barnett probably makes more in Japan when you factor in his New Japan Pro Wrestling earnings, but thats neither here nor there.
Not that I buy into the conspiracy theory mind you, just putting it out there.
And I suppose its always possible if Barnett fights this thing hard enough, the CSAC might throw him a “Sean Sherk”, and he could be available just in time for the big UFC year-end card in January 2010.
Sorry, I’m “feeding the trolls”, as I’ve heard it stated, aren’t I?
how*
HA HA! RIP Affliction! Good riddens!
wat a fuking joke for the other fighters, an this must make fedors big stupid head realise the ufc is the only place to be!! if not then fuk fedor the yellow belly bastardd
haha damn JOHNBOY, i see justin or FR HELLA editing your ****! But thanks for the laugh bro!
Yeah i mean i hope this is a blessing in disguise for those who want fedor fighting brock,mir,couture etc.
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