UFC COULD GO TOE-TO-TOE WITH AFFLICTION ON JULY 19TH

Posted on | June 16, 2008 | No Comments

by: Jack Bratcher

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Ok if you had the choice between paying about forty dollars to watch some high-quality MMA fights on pay-per-view from a brand new and unproven, mostly unknown promotion or watching a free high-quality UFC event free on Spike TV what do you think the average person will do?

As if Affliction didn’t already have a big enough challenge getting people to buy this pay-per-view, their potential veiwership could really take a beating if the UFC does give us a free MMA event on July 19th as has been speculated.

What I don’t understand is why Affliction has not done a better job promoting this event. The only promotion I’ve seen are Youtube videos that I specifically searched for. The fact of the matter is that the Affliction: Banned card is the best Heavyweight MMA card ever assembled on American soil if not the world. Some could argue it’s the best MMA card ever assembled period. And that is great news for hardcore MMA fans but the fact remains that the average person and the casual MMA fan will only recognize one or two names on the card at most. There are so many champions and former champions on that card they could easily promote these fighters but they aren’t. Every MMA website should have ads for this event. They should have television commercials, maybe a television promo, radio commercials. Affliction: Banned should be everywhere we look. Word is that Affliction is anticipating between two and three hundred thousand buys for the pay-per-view. However, John Pollock today on Fight Network Radio said that if the UFC does go toe-to-toe on July 19th with a free event on Spike TV (possibly featuring Wanderlei Silva vs. Brandon Vera) that the Affliction: Banned pay-per-view would be lucky to get 30,000 buys. That’s a far cry from two or three hundred thousand and would be a devastating disappointment for the T-Shirt turned MMApromotion company.

I’m interested to hear from our readers. Which would you choose: a free full-length live UFC event featuring Wanderlei Silva and Brandon Vera on Spike TV or the Affliction: Banned pay-per-view costing approximately $40.00?

I got to tell you, personally, there’s no way in hell I’m missing that Affliction card but I’m also not gonna miss a free UFC event with Wanderlei fighting Brandon Vera. I have a feeling on July 19th I’ll most likely have one event streaming on my Hi-Def computer monitor while the other one is playing on my Hi-Def TV.

On one hand I find it a little silly and maybe a bit disturbing that Dana White feels the need to use his fighters to put on an event with the specific intention of taking away viewers from the Affliction PPV event. We always hear Dana talking about how all these other MMA promotions can’t hold a candle to the UFC but then he feels the need to put on an event to hurt their PPV numbers? A little weird. But I guess that’s the way business works at this level. Who am I to question the business practices of the man who took a fledgling no-holds-barred fighting organization and turned it into a legitimate Mixed Martial Arts sports company and a household name across the nation. Whatever White’s reasons, if the UFC does indeed hold a July 19th free event on Spike TV, we the fans are the real winners because we get double the action.

To view all the fighters and match-ups scheduled for the Affliction: Banned event on July 19th at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California and to see the official press release click HERE. (http://promma.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/new-press-release-from-affliction-61108/)

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