I would watch UFC Fight Night, download Affliction. The Fedor fight is the only one I would want to watch, and you know 5 minutes after it airs, it would be on all the video sharing channels anyway. It may be a good and profitable live event, but probably a poorly rated PPV event. Just my guess.
My prediction, UFC wins by a wide margin.
Update: After the bell
All I can say is, wow, they put a lot of money in this thing. There were a lot of surprises. First one being Noguira. Brother to the Interim (and current) heavyweight champion of UFC. He wasn't even on the card, and he showed up and fought Edwin Dewees. Maybe Donald thought he kinda made it look like a last minute fight and people would mistake him for his brother. Clever. It feels like everyone left at once. Couture, Sylvia, Arlovski, Cro Cop, and Fedor who ufc was close to signing with. Who is left? Wanderlei has moved down to light heavyweight, Gonzaga doesn't seem like the guy after Randy just owned him, Frank Mir never got his groove back after his bike accident, Kongo is on a losing streak... The future is uncertain. Smaller fighters are exciting to watch, everyone assumes the heavy weight champion is at the top of the food chain, and although there is a strong argument that weight and size doesn't matter in MMA, its not a bad assumption to make either. As for Affliction, it looked like they had a full packed arena, and they knew how to put on a good show. But it is uncertain that they made enough money to keep on going. It was a do or die event. And we won't know until the next event is announced. Megadeth opened the event, Big John McCarthy looks like he now become announcer (how does that happen? I thought the only thing he knew how to say was "are you ready? are you ready? let's get it on! c'mon!), the 2 PrideFC Commentators were the commentators, Randy seemed to be involved in a lot of the event although he hadn't fought (yet). Tito was probably humping Trump's leg, telling him how he wants to fight in the next Affliction event because how much he hates Dana White. Herb was the ref. Lets not forget Michael Buffer was there as the announcer which was a nice touch. I always thought UFC's business practices were shrewd and its made them really successful, but they are going up against Donald Trump and he's showing them that he be shrewd too. He understands the business, and he knows business tactics.
I think this all happened because UFC made a mistake holding their ground with Fedor and the exclusive contracts. Fedor just wanted to fight in his sambo matches. They should have been ok with that because it really doesn't effect MMA. And after the deal died, Randy stated that it was a big reason why he left. Arlovski and Sylvia, UFC doesn't really miss them, but with them all being there, it just makes the UFC look that much worse. If I was Dana, instead of not signing someone because of exclusivity, he should have put a clause like that stated that people like Fedor can fight in other MMA events, but if they lose, the UFC could have a say in whether they want to keep the contract with the fighter, and if they do, they would have to fight with a smaller purse. Because its all about leverage. You get them on your side, and make it look like a bad decision to even consider it, even though they think they are not in an exclusive agreement. EliteXC has been the laughingstock of MMA, but I have to say that Affliction Banned was a solid event that did everything right. I'll be watching closely to see what's going to come out of this.
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