Without Zuffa’s aggression, nobody has momentum
Published by on August 18th, 2008 in Current Events

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By Zach Arnold

Have you noticed the compete lack of heat going into the second Affliction show on October 11th? You’re not the only one.

The promotion will headline their second big show (this time at the Thomas & Mack Center) with a main event of Josh Barnett vs. Andrei Arlovski. On paper, it’s an excellent bout. In reality, however, it’s going to be hard to see the fight moving the needle as far as casual fan interest is concerned. Affliction spent so much energy promoting Fedor on their debut show that the theme for the second show is, “Which heavyweight will end up facing Fedor down the road?” Call it the “Kimbo Slice effect,” but Affliction’s second show could turn out in similar fashion in terms of crowd heat as Elite XC’s second show on CBS did when they didn’t have Kimbo Slice on the card as opposed to their initial showing on broadcast TV.

The great irony in Fedor not appearing for the second Affliction show is that he claims he wants to fight on New Year’s Eve for DREAM in Japan. DREAM is another promotion that is teetering on the edge of collapse and given Fedor’s track record of headlining promotions that have gone out of business, it would be a sad but fitting end to K-1 & DSE’s bastard child of an MMA project gone horribly stale.

When UFC President Dana White made an aggressive pitch to attack Affliction’s debut show on multiple levels (including a counter-show featuring Anderson Silva), everyone universally panned the move by White as giving Affliction free press coverage. After all, the storyline of Affliction vs. UFC was one that media types were certainly interested in both covering and selling to the masses. Despite the common logic that White made a mistake in going after Affliction, White actually proved a point about Affliction and other rivals to UFC by accident. A funny thing happened along the way… UFC has proven that without their momentum to bash the competition or to promote one of their own shows, your casual MMA fan in America has little interest in watching the ‘other guys.’

It’s safe to say that in North America, MMA fans are really more or less UFC fans on a general scale. You may as well call Affliction the CFL and Elite XC the Arena League at this point, given the treatment that other promotions have received in both the press and amongst casual fans.

If you accept the premise that UFC is the only game in town and that their marketing prowess is what drives the current MMA market by-in large, then how can anyone establish momentum against the 800-pound gorilla in the market? One word: consistency.

Consistency is not an attribute that we’ve seen on display at all with UFC’s rivals.

Elite XC is in complete turmoil right now. Gary Shaw and Doug DeLuca are both gone from the company, while Jeremy Lappen is now the head matchmaker. Without Shaw’s hard-edge marketing and showmanship, EXC is turning into a very bland MMA promotion with a CBS TV deal. The company is also facing a very serious lawsuit by Wallid Ismael, who claims that EXC management ripped off characteristics from his Jungle Fight promotion and basically took all of his knowledge of the MMA business without any sort of compensation. That lawsuit starts gaining steam in the courts next month.

As if a lawsuit and executive departures weren’t bad enough for Elite XC, the company is facing tremendous financial stress in regards to all of the major B-level acquisitions that it made (Cage Rage, ICON Sport, an investment in Spirit MC, King of the Cage) and hasn’t capitalized on in terms of either managing those respective brands or the fighters under contract to those organizations. The attempt at creating a farm system has massive failed and negatively impacted the business.

Affliction, heading into their second ever MMA event this October, does not seem to have the media juice or buzz like they had going into their debut event. Remember, the promotion proclaimed their first card as “the greatest heavyweight card of all time.” Was it really the Affliction brand and fighters that sold interest to MMA fans the first time around or was it the fact that Affliction was perceived to be on par with UFC and feuding with Dana White as a main reason people were curious about watching the debut show?

UFC’s media promotional machine headed to Chicago on Monday and put on a show for the media there at their press conference to announce the headline fights for their October 25th show in the market. The Chicago Sun-Times and other major media outlets are covering UFC’s entry into the marketplace on a major level, despite the fact that the IFL ran a few shows at Hoffman Estates in the area and received little or no coverage for it.

For Affliction’s sake, the promotion must hope that their October 11th event in Las Vegas draws the ire of UFC for basically running on Zuffa’s home turf. If Zuffa ignores Affliction and does not give into the temptation of giving them free media coverage, then Affliction will have a very hard time generating media interest and significant cash flow for the second show. Without someone like Tito Ortiz headlining the card, it is going to be hard to fathom how Affliction will garner major attention from fight fans, insiders, corporate sponsors, and players in the fight game for the second show. Perception is reality and right now, Affliction is a t-shirt company that is simply viewed as a glorified ATM to fighters and nothing else. Unless the company can show a track record of consistency in promoting high-quality shows and turning a profit on said shows, then it is going to be very hard for this upstart organization to gain any sort of momentum unless they can draw the ire of Dana White and stir up a hornet’s nest in the press.

The fact is that UFC right now has all the momentum and nobody else in the industry does. Without UFC’s momentum, things simply don’t get done or pushed because nobody cares about the other players in the industry right now.