Affliction Gets It Right…

By: James Lynch | Posted: Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 3:21 pm.

Let’s be honest, Affliction isn’t putting the UFC out of business anytime soon. But this doesn’t mean they can’t put on one hell of a show. Last nights broadcast of Affliction Day of Reckoning, was solid from top to bottom, both in the quality of fights and the broadcast. Their heavyweight kingpin Fedor Emelianenko deserves much of this credit as he provides the foundation for this organizations continued success. This article isn’t here to bash the UFC, but rather point out many of the positives from last night’s event, beginning with the fighters.

If you look at the failure of Elite XC trying to showcase their events around an unproven Kimbo Slice, Affliction used the same strategy with Fedor. But the major difference here, Fedor is arguably the best pound for pound fighter in MMA, and Kimbo is nothing more than a glorified Youtube superstar. It worked because if you love this sport, there is still much intrigue over a fighter who seems unbeatable. But all the fighters on the telecast proved their worth and there was a bit of everything throughout the night. There were plenty of kicks to the groin (in Lauzon/Green), a bit of surprise (Belfort’s quick knockout of Lindland), the expected (Sokodjou tapping out in the 2^nd) and finally intrigue of future matchups (Barnett vs Fedor). 

Right from the opening of the main card, two lightweight prospects Dan Lauzon and Bobby Green battled for recognition and identity. The fight went back and forth, Green looked phenomenal on the feet, while Lauzon looked like at any second he would end the fight on the ground. Despite being kicked in the groin three times in the first round, Lauzon secures the choke and the fight ends. Next up, a heavyweight tilt, pitting “Baby Fedor”, (which I’m guessing is English for “Punching bag”) against Paul Buentello. Two things shown in this fight, first is Buentellos growth as a fighter, showing some impressive mobility and striking. Second the ability for Kirill Sidelnikov, at the tender age of 20, being able withstand a barrage of punches from a top heavyweight, only shows a bright future. The light heavyweight bout between Babalu and Sokodjou went as most expected. Sokodjou overwhelmed Babalu at the beginning with his standup however wasn’t able to finish him off in the first stanza. Of course Babalu gets the fight to the ground in the 2^nd round and Sokodjou taps out, looking more and more like his stunt double, Houston Alexander. In probably the most surprising fight of the evening, Vitor Belfort shows some explosive standup, knocking out Matt Lindland in 36 seconds (similar to David Terrell knocking him out at UFC 49). You have to think with Belforts standup, he could provide an interesting future match up against UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. The next bout saw buddies Gilbert Yvel and Josh Barnett duel it out in some heavyweight action. While Barnett dominated the entire fight, you have to give Yvel credit for hanging in there. To finish off the evening, the most interesting match up of the night pitted former UFC champ, Andrei Arlovksi against Fedor Emelianenko. Despite Arlovski landing a number of shots and looking quite impressive in the opening minutes, he makes would make a simple mistake. In similar fashion to Uriah Faber jumping into a knockout against Mike Brown, Arlovski does the same thing after landing a kick to the Russian, jumping into a knockout punch. It must be killing Dana White right now that Fedor isn’t in the UFC and has just dismantled two of his ex-champions in the 1^st round.

One thing I really liked even before the event started, was the coverage of the weigh-ins. The UFC likes to run their countdown shows (which don’t get me wrong are great) but I really liked HDNet’s Inside MMA crew, doing the coverage of the weigh-ins, giving expert analysis as the fighters would weigh in, and post weigh-in interviews (even though Rob Kreuk made all those interviews incredibly awkward as usual). Would it really kill the UFC to pitch in a few extra dollars and put on a weigh-in show on Spike TV? I know they proved content for their website, but its much better watching it on television. As for the actual broadcast team, I really liked the three-man booth (having 2 broadcasters and a fighter). Sean Wheelock, Jimmy Smith and Tito Ortiz really helped the flow of this broadcast. Ortiz kept referencing his past fights, in relation to moves that fighters were using, and I really liked that. While the graphics on the show were decent, I liked the fight charts (the stats about how many punches were landed etc) and also the keys to victory were really good (as opposed to some of the UFC keys to victory, “Has good heart”). Also having the undercard fights on HDNet was a great idea, it doesn’t hurt the pay-per view buys, and it doesn’t cost the fans anything (unlike UFC on Demand)

In my eyes, this event surpassed the lackluster UFC 93 event a week earlier. In some ways, waiting months in between to throw together a great card is worth it. As great as the UFC is for putting together events every month (or sometimes more), with this can sometimes have watered down cards, pitching main events like UFC 78: Micheal Bisping vs Rashad Evans, or UFC 73: Rich Franklin vs Yushin Okami. This also works to Afflictions advantage. After the Fedor/Barnett fight, there aren’t many exciting fights down the line to pitch the Last Emperor. This allows the organization plenty of time to find suitable opponents in building an event card. 

There were a few downsides to this event though. I’m a big Tito Ortiz fan, but man does he need some serious coaching in the broadcasting department. There was plenty of awkwardness throughout the evening with his in ring interviews, like the in ring interview with Babalu

“Yes, and uh, my back will be better in about three months, so I know all the fans would love to see me and you get it on. You know what, you’re an awesome fighter, congratulations tonight. Everybody lets give a hand to Renato Babalu, one of the greatest light heavyweights, of the night.”

Make sense? I didn’t think so. Also they need to get rid of Scott Ferrell, who by the way looks like Scott Weiland (lead singer of Velvet Revolver) and sounds like a spokesman for one of those “Don’t Smoke” ads. Him and Chuck Zito didn’t seem like commentators, but rather like those typical hardcore fans who are outside an arena scalping tickets.

From this event, the fans can only hope Affliction can make enough money to survive and provide entertaining events down the line. With the backing of Donald Trump and Oscar De La Hoya, you would think this isn’t another WFA/IFL situation. Affliction has a good stable of fighters, and hopefully they can sign more guys to beef up their weight divisions. Eventually, the marry-go round at heavyweight is going to end soon, so they will need to focus on the lighter weight classes. While I will always be a fan of the UFC, remember that more MMA is good for not only the fans, but the fighters too.  

CATEGORIES:Editorial