Okay, I feel I should point this out: Affliction has been heavily invested in by Trump, possibly the most brilliant marketing mind/brand-builder ever (and I absolutely can't stand the guy), so lets go ahead and not write them off quite yet. Anderson/Irvin is a completely ******ed matchup, I respect Irvin for taking this fight but, c'mon, seriously?? ..it kinda leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anderson should be fighting someone who is at least top 10, maybe even top 5 LHW. Regardless, I already got tickets for the Affliction event so that's where I will be

Kirk

I disagree with DO about this card destroying Affliction. This card wasn't going to do well to begin with, and I don't think the UFC card is going to take away too much of its business. However, with Trump and his media connections, the subsequent shows, if any, will be a better litmus test for how they fare.

That being said, I'd be shocked if they are around this time next year.

Has anyone seen a single add for the Affliction fight? If so, where?

Anderson Silva is actually not that great of a draw. He always seems to get around 300k buys, which is weird since he's basically a super technical Chuck Liddell who pwns people's faces.

I kinda want to see them fight again. There's a load of other fights I'd rather see instead but I wouldn't mind since the 2nd fight was such a joke. I think it would just look a lot like the 1st though.

With regards to Rampage/Chuck 3 - I don't think the next fight thing is true, because their are too many people crowding around. It's hard for me to believe that they'd put both Thiago Alves and Machida on the back burner for Chuck. I think it's more likely that they give one of those two a title shot and THEN Chuck could have another title shot. I guess I still have a little bit of faith that the next shot might go to the more deserving fighters.

Some possibilities for Shogun:

Lyoto Machida: unlikely, they probably don't want him to lose 2 in a row

Keith Jardine: I think this fight makes a lot of sense, both guys are well thought of but coming off of losses without a clear direction.

Someone a rung below, like Stephan Bonnar: This also makes sense, in that Bonnar might draw a bit and they'd hope Shogun would beat the crap out of him to build his star.

I asked this same question on a MMA blog the other day. Nobody had seen one. Today I saw an ad on the MMA page on yahoo. That's it so far.

^^ thiago silva (so many thiago's and silva's in mma)

dana white has shown us recently that he doesn't adhere to a traditional boxing style promotion scheme, where you feed your top talent cans until they are 30-0 and then start creating superfights. i hate him and the UFC, but he makes tough fights and the belts in the UFC have a lot of meaning b/c of this imo. so yeah Rampage/Chuck 3 would make a lot of cash, but i don't think you can deny Machida or T.Silva much longer as they are 5-0 and 4-0 in the UFC.

im sayin Rampage/Machida in Sept/Oct to set up a LHW title fight on NYE

edit: i always forget about rashad evans, man the UFC LHW is so freaking stacked. i actually have no idea what dana white is going to do, disregard my entire post lol

I believe I saw an Affliction PPV add placed during DREAM 4, anyone else see it?

Well Evans/Liddell is coming up, so one will be squarely in the middle of the picture (probably still after Lyoto but maybe before Thiago) and one will be dropped from contention for a while.

i absolutely cannot understand why all these 'new' promotions do not advertise their cards to the death. WFA had a decent card and did 0 promotion, Pride had decent cards and did 0 promotion, Affliction has a great card and does 0 promotion; wtf.

There's no point in promoting a card 4 weeks in advance. Really, only the UFC has the logistic capabilities to successfully do that. Affliction will probably start advertising about 7-10 days before the event starts.

i really feel like silva > sylvia as it pertains to being a bigger name amongst casual fans, and being more popular with fans. silva has had much, much, much more entertaining fights, and just on that alone, i think that appeals to casual fans moreso than sylvia's style.

Actually I'd say 2-4 weeks is best time, with 4 weeks being better. Otherwise people will have made plans for that weekend already...

Ray

watching ufc and t******ing affliction ldo

Big announcement = Lorenzo Fertitta leaving the casino business to concentrate entirely on UFC?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news;_yl...yhoo&type=lgns

I guess it makes sense. It was never supposed to be a "big media announcement", just a big announcement for the company employees. And it *is* huge, and an indicator of where this sport is headed. Fertitta is the 2nd highest paid casino executive and he's giving that up to concentrate solely on the MMA industry.

I was pretty sure it was going to be that MMA was legalised in NY which wouldn't have been very big news at all, so the announcement seems pretty good imo.

Speaking of MMA in NY, it isn't looking good.

Anyone else super stoked about tonite's episode of TUF? UFC.com has a trailer and Dana promises this to be the most f'd up, biggest twist in the history of 7 seasons of the show. My prediction (pure speculation-no spoiler or anything) is that after the Amir/CB fight, one of the finalists gets booted for the zapruder looking "limo" incident. We'll then have a "new" semi-final fight featuring Tim (loser of his semi-final fight w/Jesse) and the loser of the CB/Amir fight which will kick off the episode...this winner will find his way into the TUF Finale on Saturday.

From a Spike press release:

"New York, NY, June 18, 2008 – In one of the most stunning twists in the history of the Ultimate Fighter™, for the first time, a gladiator who endured through six weeks of living in seclusion with fifteen other mixed martial artists in the Las Vegas desert, and defeated three of his housemates for the right to fight for a guaranteed six figure contract with the UFC®, will not be participating in the show’s live finale."

That leaves Jesse and the winner of CB/Amir.

they have to pull that kind of crap to keep the show fresh i guess.

I wonder how power/responsibility will be split between Dana and Lorenzo.

Dana ****ing White.

What if one of the fighters got drunk and raped a cameraman? Worthy cause for expulsion imo!

I can't see it being CB...money's on Jesse. Didn't he pee himself before?

Maybe now Jesse can be the Afflictionest Fighter.

wtf, unless there was a lot we didnt see this **** seems fixed to get CB to the finals