Another View: Affliction Beats UFC

by Kid Nate on Jul 20, 2008 8:31 PM EDT in News Comment 19 comments

Steve Cofield has a different take on last night's fights. For fight quality, he scores it a clear win for the new kid:

It was billed as the best MMA card ever. The Affliction "Banned" card didn't quite reach that level but it was a very good show and in the end overwhelmed UFC's attempt at counter-programming. It wasn't a complete KO but we'll give Affliction a 30-27 win.

The Affliction card featured four really entertaining fights with the capper being the unreal destruction of Tim Sylvia laid down by Fedor Emelianenko. The Josh Barnett knockout of Pedro Rizzo was awesome. Andrei Arlovski's athleticism was jaw-dropping against a very tough Ben Rothwell. Vitor Belfort's debut at 185 over Terry Martin was very good as well. For fans who are into the nuances and technical end of the fight game, the Babalu, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and Matt Lindland fights were all entertaining as well.

The UFN 14 card was really sputtering to a close before the big win by Anderson Silva. UFC was saved in some ways by the vicious knockout of James Irvin by Silva. The lead-in fight with Brandon Vera and Reese Andy was a total snoozer. Vera was clearly affected by his weight cut and Andy had nothing on the feet. The bout before that featured Frank Edgar putting on a nice exhibition of ground control and transitions against Hermes Franca but for the casual fan it was a tough fight to watch.

But he has some criticisms of the production:

The Affliction card was a huge success but there were some gaffs to chronicle.

The rookie broadcast team at Affliction did a solid job. There were a few problems. Big John McCarthy got off to a slow start with his post-fight interviews in the ring but improved as the night went along. He was actually a lot better calling the fights as the second color commentator. He had some great insight and recalled good factoids from past fights. One pointer for Glazer. When the color guys are speaking you don't have to try and scream over the top to call a kick or punch. The viewer sees what's going on and two voices speaking at once becomes inaudible.

Affliction also did a lousy of adjusting on the fly. They were clearly having trouble with wireless mikes around the ring. The static and the audio cutting in and out during interviews was disturbing. Maybe that can't be fixed during the course of a five hour event. I'm not a television expert. I do know that you rarely see an ongoing issue during HBO and UFC broadcasts.
There was a silly moment during the Andrei Arlvoski post-fight interview where we got to see Glazer getting make-up applied. Aside from that, the show was solid. I think fan feedback will dictate scrapping the musical interludes.

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This is a case of somebody deciding it would be better before it even happened, and refusing to give up on that belief.

Look at this objectively, and they were about the same quality. That speaks volumes about what UFC was able to put together on very short notice on free TV vs. what Affliction spent tons of money and time to put together on PPV.

by Popetastic on Jul 20, 2008 6:43 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Short notice? The UFC had a 15 year head start.

by George Lucas on Jul 20, 2008 7:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, and it shows.

I’m talking about the event itself. UFC threw that thing together in a few weeks and it was free and better than Affliction. Anyone still saying that this Affliction card was “the best heavyweight card ever assembled” is delusional, yet I’m seeing some of that. Really really wanting Affliction to be good doesn’t make it so.

by Popetastic on Jul 20, 2008 10:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Steve Cofield is right.

I agree with everything he wrote.

by marcio on Jul 20, 2008 7:03 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sheep

You are more Anti UFC than Pro Anything else. Your comments on other sites are more biased yet you carry that bias more subtley over here. Anyway, your UFC hate is noted as is your closed mind.

by MrNiceGuyMMA on Jul 20, 2008 8:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I was surprised by Cofields article. I thought he would have blasted last night’s Affliction event. I disagree, the UFC’s event last night was a lot better than Affliction’s. I couldn’t get over the terrible production.

by steveoc24 on Jul 20, 2008 7:11 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I haven’t seen the Affliction show, but Cofield’s glowing evaluation doesn’t jive with anything else I’ve read, so far. I will say that UFN wasn’t exceptional, but it was pretty solid. Cain Velasquez was impressive. Anderson Silva was a badass; no surprise there. The question is where does Affliction go from here?

by Cannon Jacques on Jul 20, 2008 7:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I’ve heard alot of people say that UFN wasn’t very exciting. I don’t really understand that. The only boring fight was the Vera fight. 3 great KO’s, a nice submission, a war between Franca/Edgar and a very controversial decision (burns/johnson).

As for Affliction, I think they need to wait and see how they did on PPV. I think they are going to be very shocked when the see low #’s especially when they say they put on the greatest PPV card in MMA history. If they don’t pull in great #’s from this card and don’t break even, I’m not sure why they would put on another card. I hope they do so the UFC can counter them and give me another free event. Better yet, counter them with a PPV card and make it only $29.99. That should be interesting.

by steveoc24 on Jul 20, 2008 8:10 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I dunno

There’s only a ton of really good fights they can create. Belfort/Lindland would be awesome. Fedor/any of their top heavyweights would be awesome. Noguiera/Babalu would be awesome. Those are all really great fights. Meanwhile, what does the UFC do in response? Shogun/David Heath?

by D.Capitated on Jul 20, 2008 8:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

true

They still have some good matchup’s. I wouldn’t mind see AA vs Syvlia one more time. Yes, their last fight was a sleeper, but with the new rumors of Sylvia and AA’s ex, I wouldn’t mind see a grudge match.

What does the UFC do in response? Easy, they have an all-star roster in every division from top to bottom. Alot of fighters say they want to fight more so they should be training and ready at all times to take a fight on late notice.

by steveoc24 on Jul 20, 2008 8:31 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That is a nice thought re: UFC....

But let’s look a little more rationally at it. At heavyweight, most of the best heavyweights aren’t there. They’ve got a lot of 205ers, but some are hurt and many are plugged into other fights coming up. 185 is super shallow as far as names go. 170 has a lot of guys though, but I’m not sure Diego Sanchez/some guy he should beat is gonna do much. 155 is a lot of generic white wrestlers and Penn. I can’t see any of their big names being available on a moment’s notice like that again apart from perhaps Anderson.

by D.Capitated on Jul 20, 2008 10:57 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What have you read?

SI.com?
MMAjunkie?
FiveOnces?
Sherdog?

All gave complementary reviews of the show, you must be reading only what complements your original thoughts.

by marcio on Jul 20, 2008 8:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’m talking about people that comment on other sites, not the writers of sites who post their thoughts.

by steveoc24 on Jul 20, 2008 8:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I didn’t say that all outlets were completely devoid of compliments. It didn’t sound like Affliction “overwhelmed” the UFC’s effort. I hadn’t heard that Affliction’s fights were more exciting than the UFC’s. Arlovski/ Rothwell sounded exciting, and Fedor was impressive. As far as UFN, Vera/Andy was hard to watch, and Burns/Johnson was good until the end. The other fights were pretty good. This site wasn’t particularly high on the Affliction event. The guys at Fightlinker seemed to prefer UFN from top to bottom though they liked Fedor and Arlovski’s showings. By the way, I don’t have an opinion on the event, because I haven’t seen it yet.

by Cannon Jacques on Jul 20, 2008 9:04 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I have to imagine the success or failure of last night is still undecided. In the end their success will be determined by the amount of buys they had. Affliction did a good job overall, and left themselves a place to grow with future match-ups. While I may draw anger from this comment, I feel it must be said. I don’t feel Couture, at this point in both of their perspective careers, stands a chance at beating Fedor. So much so that the only reason I’d tune in is to see Randy take his beating. Randy’s career has always had highs and lows and never has he been a dominate champion of any weight class. That be said Andrei would put a much better challenge to Fedor currently. And is a fight I’d much rather see come to fruition.

by Tommy7 on Jul 20, 2008 8:16 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I never thought I’d see the day where the blogs all defended UFC and the mainstream sites all voted in favor of their competitor, but today’s that day.

One thing I think has gone unnoticed: Most of the people saying thumbs up on Affliction, like Meltzer and Gross, were there live in Anaheim. It’s possible that Affliction was one of those cards that came off great in person and poorly on television/

by andherewego on Jul 20, 2008 8:22 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs