I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Cohen, Executive Vice President of The Trump Organization and Special Counsel to Donald Trump, about his boss' efforts to get involved with Affliction and into the mixed martial arts business.
Mr. Cohen stated Mr. Trump and Affliction plan to go head to head with the UFC, that former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski's compensation from Affliction "far exceeds" what the UFC was paying him, the role Tito Ortiz played in getting Trump involved and more.
Luke Thomas: Why is Donald Trump getting involved with mixed martial arts?
Michael Cohen: Well, as it states in the press release, Mr. Trump has been a fan of combat sports – boxing, football – his entire life. It’s not uncommon to see Mr. Trump at a boxing match, at a championship match.
He also became interested in mixed martial arts as a direct result. You may be aware that Tito Ortiz was a contestant on "The Apprentice". So while he has been following the sport as its progressed over the last X number of years, in reality he became very interested in the sport after spending quite a bit of time with Tito Ortiz. And one of the issues that came up, of course, is, "how much do you fighters actually make?" In conjunction with Affliction, which is a company where there’s mutual friends, they approached [Trump] with the prospect of becoming an equity partner in Affliction Entertainment. And after approximately a month of talks and negotiations, a deal was inked this past Monday. The press release went out and we have the press conference [today].
Now here’s the interesting thing when it comes to primetime television: because he has the reputation of being able to get viewers and coupled with the fact that the Affliction family has the best talent in mixed martial arts that currently exists – guys like Fedor [Emelianenko], guys like [Tim] Sylvia, guys like Matt Lindland, guys like Babalu, [Andrei] Arlovski, potentially Tito Ortiz – the entire fight card for the July 19th event is without exaggeration the greatest fight card ever put together and that was done only by and through the power of the Trump mark.
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