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UFC to go head to head with Affliction: Banned

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By Eric Page | Friday, July 04, 2008 |

Dana White knows how to squelch the competition.

That might be why the Ultimate Fighting Championship is the undisputed champion brand of mixed martial arts.

In a move similar to one he made in September 2006 when Pat Miletich came out of retirement to fight Renzo Gracie at the Mark of the Quad-Cities, the UFC boss is going after the July 19 Affliction: Banned event at which Miletich Fighting Systems heavyweight Tim Sylvia is slated to battle top-ranked Fedor Emelianenko for the World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts title.

White on Thursday announced a UFC event featuring Anderson Silva that will go head to head with the Affliction card. The catch — fans will get the UFC event free on Spike TV, while Affliction: Banned is available only on pay-per-view.

“I don’t know why he’s doing it,” said Sylvia, a five-time UFC champ who this spring left UFC and signed to headline newly launched Adrenaline MMA. “I really don’t think it’s going to affect us, to be honest with you, because it’s free TV.

“What’s going to happen is the die-hard fans are going to TiVo or DVR the UFC, because it’s free, and they’re going to get the pay-per-view, too.”

Silva, UFC’s middleweight champ who is widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, is moving up a weight class to take on light heavyweight knockout artist James Irvin. The rest of the card will be announced in the coming weeks.

The Affliction lineup, meanwhile, features some of the biggest names in MMA, including six of the top 10 heavyweights in the world, according to WAMMA’s rankings. In addition to Sylvia, MFS’s Ben Rothwell, the No. 9-ranked heavyweight, will be there taking on sixth-ranked Andrei Arlovski.

“This fight has got the biggest buzz of any fight in MMA history,” Sylvia said. “This Affliction card is huge. We have (six) of the top 10 guys in the world signed. No one else has that. This fight is what everyone wants to see.”

Back in 2006, Miletich’s return to the ring to fight another legend in Gracie was generating an awful lot of buzz, too. A month after that fight was announced, White scheduled an event for the same night.

UFC 63 was headlined by a welterweight championship bout between MFS’s Matt Hughes and B.J. Penn. Jens Pulver, another Miletich disciple, was on the undercard, and the two events went head to head on pay-per-view.

Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.