Dana White Comments on Affliction’s July 11th Plans
Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett
UFC President Dana White on Sunday issued the promotion’s first comments on Affliction’s rumored July 11th event, which would air opposite UFC 100 and feature heavyweights Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett.
“How do I feel about them trying to counter-program UFC 100?,” White told Five Ounces of Pain, “I love it. I fucking love it. I love it. I don’t like these guys and I want to see them spend more of their t-shirt money. What they should be worrying about is — they’ve already seen first hand that nobody gives a shit about Affliction MMA — what they need to starting worrying about is nobody wants to wear their goofy fucking clothes anymore either. The fad is over and they better start saving as much of that t-shirt money as they can.”
Rumors first surfaced on Wednesday that Affliction was considering holding its third event opposite of the UFC’s historic card, which will feature the rematch between heavyweight champions Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir as well as a welterweight title bout between champion Georges St. Pierre and challenger Thiago Alves. On Thursday, Affliction confirmed that the date was under consideration, but stated that they were “not looking to go up against the UFC”. Further reports published on Saturday confirmed that the promotion was planning to directly take on the UFC on July 11th with Emelianenko and Barnett featured in separate bouts.
For the latest Affliction rumors check out the MMAFrenzy.com MMA rumors section.
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competition is good for mma. the more the better.
small fights, big fights, its all good.
bring mma to ny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes competition is always good. We can have more exciting stuff than the some of the boring UFC events.
I actually kind of hope affliction goes under, it appears to be ran by a bunch of morons. I prefer strikeforce, dream, or sengoku hands down to affliction. The only thing they have is fedor.
it seems like dana isnt worried, and I dont blame him. the only thing affliction had was the fedor-barnett fight, and they fumbled that by having them in different fights. The only other options are fedor-tito, fedor-overreem, fedor-kimbo. look at ufc 100 gsp-alves, brock-mir. those two fights blow affliction away. affliction cant compete with it, even if it is for free. affliction is desperate to make money and they might go under with this event.
I heard from a somewhat reliable MMA source that Affliction is planning a tournament of sorts. Basically Fedor, Barnett, Arlovski, Tito, and others in a 4 person or 8 person show down, formatted similar to the original UFC cards. Could be interesting.
The big question is this: would any athletic commission in the US sign off on that? I’m guessing they wouldn’t these days. It’s been an at least unwritten rule that you fight once per card in the US for several years now.
the CSAC & NSAC won’t let you fight within 30 days of your last fight.
Thanks for the clarification. That effectively ends the speculation that they are doing an old school-style tourney.
unless they do it outside the US like mayb japan which would also add a lil sting to the ufc seeing as how the ufc has had problems gettin an event over there and its such a huge market. if this is afflictions last stand put it on free tv(like the ufc does for some of the international events) and have it b in japan where fedor is a god and barnett is also well liked. only chance
HAhahahaha, Dana White is the MAN. He is right with every thing he just said. Leave MMA to the MMA people and leave the T-Shirts to seamstresses.
I’ll admit, I don’t care much about Affliction. Nothing against their fighers, they undoubtedly have some great ones. But I’ll pay to watch the UFC before I watch Affliction for free. I just think that it’s a superior promotion, similar to NFL > Arena Football.
i like ufc better than affliction. But i do disagree with dana in that fact when he said nobody wants to where affliction shirts anymore. I have seen more affliction shirts than ufe by far. Ufc has been putting some crappy events lately. But most of afflictions fights are garbage. I think strickforce will be the biggest competitor for ufc
Strikeforce doesn’t WANT to be a competitor. They know they aren’t going to start doing monthly PPVs to compete. They are pretty much content to have HDNet or Showtime put their events on.
Thye know the UFC is the big dog on the block and they are happy to let it be so. They want their piece of an entirely different pie and the UFC is happy to let them because they didn’t get where they are by LITERALLY riding someone else’s back.
If you spent $60 on a t-shirt then you’d better wear it, just my opinion though. Besides UFC isn’t based off T-Shirt sales.
Like Dbiz said Strikeforce isn’t looking to compete w/ the UFC so even w/ their possible CBS deal and signing of EliteXC fighters they’re looking to carve their own niche. Plus if both operate independent of each other, then it is more likely an amicable relationship would be there which could eventually lead to a crossover event. Plus if they UFC puts out so many fights a year a few may not be the best fights but it is better than 90% of what is out there.
Please go read this editorial I wrote, and then think about how much really want to complain about “crappy” events.
If Cung Le will start fighting again……
That seems to be a MASSIVE “if” at this point. He keeps getting movie offers… and taking them.
get punched in the face and make decent money or a make crap load of money and not get hit…gee tough choice haha
Cannot hate him there.
UFC is good
Affliction is good
Dream is good
more for the consumers to chose from
thats what competition is for