What a wild course of events over the last week it has beenn for MMA promotion Affliction. They went from hyping their third PPV with a headline match of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett, only to see Josh Barnett test positive for steroids which led to a wild and unsuccessful scramble to find a suitable opponent for arguably the MMA world's best pound-for-pound fighter, which ultimately led to the final nail in the coffin of Affliction as a competitor to UFC in the fight promotion game.
To its credit Affliction put on some real decent PPV cards but unfortunately for the company, without a TV deal in place that allows for a natural connection with fans between PPVs as UFC has with Spike TV it was impossible for the upstart promoter to make serious in-roads as a viable competitor to UFC. They certainly tried their damnedest by throwing lots of money to entice fighters to join the organization e.g. Andrei Arlovski was paid upwards of $1.5M for his bout against Fedor. Ultimately the company was hemorrhaging money and likely would have added to their losses had the August 1st PPV gone on as planned.
No need to shed tears for Affliction though, they have gone back to focus on what initially brought them into the MMA market- making t-shirts. Specifically Affliction signed a sponsorship deal with UFC which will see the clothing company once again be able to sponsor UFC fighters.
To its credit Affliction put on some real decent PPV cards but unfortunately for the company, without a TV deal in place that allows for a natural connection with fans between PPVs as UFC has with Spike TV it was impossible for the upstart promoter to make serious in-roads as a viable competitor to UFC. They certainly tried their damnedest by throwing lots of money to entice fighters to join the organization e.g. Andrei Arlovski was paid upwards of $1.5M for his bout against Fedor. Ultimately the company was hemorrhaging money and likely would have added to their losses had the August 1st PPV gone on as planned.
No need to shed tears for Affliction though, they have gone back to focus on what initially brought them into the MMA market- making t-shirts. Specifically Affliction signed a sponsorship deal with UFC which will see the clothing company once again be able to sponsor UFC fighters.
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