Steve Cofield has the exclusive for Yahoo Sports:
Sources have told Yahoo! Sports that free agent Tito Ortiz will fight Renato "Babalu" Sobral in the co-main event at Affliction's next fight card, on Oct. 11 at the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus in Las Vegas. The main event will feature a heavyweight bout between WAMMA champion Fedor Emelianenko and Andrei Arlovski.
Affliction vice president Tom Atencio would not confirm the Ortiz-Babalu fight. He said details for the fight card will be released during an Aug. 6 news conference that most likely will be held in Las Vegas.
How big is this signing for Affliction?
Well, lets look at the buy estimates (courtesy of MMAPayout and Dave Meltzer) for Tito's last five pay per views:
UFC 59 - Ortiz v. Griffin - 425,000
UFC 61 - Ortiz v. Shamrock II - 775,000
UFC 66 - Liddell v. Ortiz - 1,050,000
UFC 73 - Ortiz v. Evans - 425,000
UFC 84 - Ortiz v. Machida - 475,000-525,000
Average: 635,000
To put this in modern TV parlance, Affliction just pulled a "game changer". With a PPV ace like Ortiz, the landscape changes drastically. Given a proper promotional effort, the 250,000-300,000 buy range talked about by Affliction promoter Tom Atencio that was passed off as a laughably unrealistic goal now seems much more attainable, to say the least.


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