We hate to break it to soccer and competative eating fans, but mix martial arts is America’s fastest growing sport. Over the weekend, Affliction Banned took place in Annaheim. Most of my friends don’t know what a “MMA” is, but our fellow blogger, Luke knows what he’s talking about so we invited him to clue us in if this Affliction thing is going to make it.
Exclusive Affliction MMA Wrap-Up by Luke Bushwhacker
Does this whole Affliction thing really have legs? Short answer is yes, long answer is no. We’ll go with the short answer first. Affliction will be here for now because it has Fedor and a stellar list of heavyweights to fight him. Now for the long answer. I don’t see Affliction, in its current state, remaining as a long-term threat to the UFC for a number of reasons. First, they are a tee-shirt company trying to put on a MMA event. Red Bull has taken this approach to selling their energy drink, by buying up two soccer teams and I think it can be said it has not been a great investment on their part.
If Affliction’s end goal is to increase their brand name and exposure at a profit then get out now, because aside from the talent, the production quality of their event sucked. Everything was off, from the previews, to the segment transitions, to the announcing, nothing seemed to mesh. They tried to go with the Japanese show format with over the top ring walks, the Megadeath show and Michael Buffer doing the ring announcing but no one seemed to know their place. The first televised fight started off in the second round!!!!!!!!!!!
Sports Baron at Social Baron 