Affliction Tries to Broker Deal With UFC to Cease MMA Operations

It seems to me that Zuffa would construe these actions as Affliction abandoning ship. They’re hemorrhaging money, and at the rate that they are, it is only a matter of time before they have to give up the MMA game. If the UFC is going to offer them some money to cease operations and also become their apparel partner, they may see the negotiations as the ol’ white flag. Please take us back, you know? I mean, you could look at it the other way, but one of them is making money and the other is just bleeding it out..

I’ve heard a lot of rumblings about these guys having contact in recent days/weeks. This shores up some of the loose talk.

Both sides believed the deal was off the table, but on Monday, a conference call took place between, among others, Lorenzo Fertitta and Todd Beard, Affliction’s co-founder.

Though the deal was not formally rejected by Affliction, it was clear that the goodwill between the parties had disappeared. While it’s unclear how the conversation went south, it went south quickly, with both parties directing profanities at one another. Towards the end, Beard reportedly told Ferttita, "you’ve (expletive) with the wrong guy."

Needless to say, Affliction’s window of opportunity with the UFC appears to be closed.

I never got it eather if you take what Atencio says which I don’t ,it was to help fighters out and give them better pay days and another option? But that just makes no sence what so ever when you want to make $ and bring in profit. I think like the poster below says Affliction overestimated their brand loyalty BIG TIME and thought tons of UFC fans would jump ship of follow bolth orgs which is just not the case. Affliction had a good thing going with the UFC they pretty much burned there own bridge !!!

That’s actually an interesting analogy.

..are the white flag. Not the deal itself. Such a deal doesn’t exist; it never happened.

It’s not a white flag from Zuffa it would be opening up a new income stream and getting rid of a competitor and getting Randy Couture what he wanted at the same time. Affliction is still selling a lot of clothing and that part of their company is growing and they are losing millions on MMA. This actually sounded a bit like the Golden Boy deal, they talked a lot about co-promotion and mixed cards but the only thing that really seems to of come out of that was the apparel agreement. For Affliction to get a apparal deal with the UFC would be the most important thing to their primary business, it seems the MMA business is more about personal pride at this point.

My bad. You were saying that affliction was raising the white flag. I misread it and thought you were saying zuffa was.

We know about as much as Affliction 2 as we do about UFC 94, and they are a week apart

All good points and very very true. They already have a troublesome history and its been what not even a half a year ? Its not to hard to see why they wanted to save face and throw up a white Flag and to get out of the MMA business the best and most feesable way possible ? All in all the future for Affliction is not looking good. I give them to mid summer early next fall before they fold. I myself took the over 3 events when me and a few friends bet on a under over for how many events Affliction would put on before closing shop and going under.

The partnership was placed further in doubt by Affliction’s lucrative licensing deals with UFC champions Randy Couture and Georges St. Pierre. Couture’s clothing line, Xtreme Couture, is controlled by partners of Affliction, according to court filings from the now-dismissed legal action with the UFC concerning Couture’s employment agreement. Couture has a substantial, but minority interest in the popular clothing brand.

Affliction doesn’t produce MMA apparel they produce fashion clothing for young males and happen to sponsor lots of athletes and entertainers. Tapout is pushing a MMA product where as Affliction is just pushing fashion on the demographic. Affliction could release UFC brand clothing that was sold exclusively by Affliction but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that the UFC had to be exclusive to Affliction for MMA training products and apparel.

Making a dead man blush would indeed be impressive.

I absolutely wouldn’t mind if Affliction grew to the prominence of say, Pride, for instance. assuming they were running a good promotion and forced UFC to continue to be high level. I still think healthy competition is good. As for WAMMA, why do we need them? I don;t really see where they are doing anything positive or even productive for the sport. I really miss the good old days of Pride/UFC huggery, lol. It was so much fun watching people argue about who was better!

It seems WAMMA has hung their hopes completely on Affliction at this point, even the fact that discussions like this happened isn’t very good news for their future(well it’s not like they had much of a future anyway).