This is just as far as fights go, not the announcing or the production value as a whole. Affliction had a HD stream which provided better picture quality, but the UFC still has a better overall production value. Megadeth wasn’t too bad for Affliction as they didn’t go overboard with live music and allowed the fights to continue at a reasonable pace. I was expecting them to open with Symphony of Destruction, which they did.

Best
Andrei Arlovski showing his power against Ben Rothwell throughout three rounds of fighting. Even though Arlovski unloaded on Rothwell on multiple occasions, Big Ben didn’t give up until he collapsed.

Cain Valesquez didn’t let Jake O’Brien do anything in their short and one-sided UFC fight. Valesquez was quick to put on a crucifix and wail away at O’Brien until the fight was stopped in the first round. Valesquez is being hailed as the next big thing in the UFC heavyweight division and this fight only helped.

Josh Barnett dropped Pedro Rizzo lifeless with a shot that rocked the canvas and a lot of televisions. Barnett went on to land a hammerfist for good measure immediately following Rizzo’s fall as Herb Dean darted to halt the action. Barnett got the crowd going and said a few things to hype himself up. You can tell he wants to be on the next Affliction PPV and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fighting someone bigger and better.

Props to C.B. Dollaway and his first round Peruvian necktie submission over Jesse Taylor! Also, who could forget Fedor Emelianenko’s lightening fast annihilation of Tim Sylvia. I expect to see video or since the fight was only 36 seconds long, an animated GIF of the entire fight.

Worst
Brandon Vera. Another boring fight and at light heavyweight against Reese Andy? The guy has potential, but he can’t seem to finish any fights…or provide much action inside the cage.

Two insanely fast main events. Not that we can blame Anderson Silva and Fedor Emelianenko for demolishing the competition at a furious pace, but I’m sure many fans wanted to see a little more of James Irvin and Tim Sylvia. The combined time for both main events? One minute and 37 seconds.

But overall, who can complain about more than a dozen MMA fights in one night? Sure, it’s tedious to swtich back and forth even with a DVR/TiVo, but as long as the UFC has competition, they’ll step up to provide more fights. And more fights mean more chances for the sport to hit the headlines on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and many other big publications.

Now we wait for next weekend to see if CBS can step up to provide another exciting night of MMA fighting.

Check back later tonight starting at 9PM EST for results on the Affliction “Banned” event. Fights for the UFC Fight Night begin at 9PM EST as well.

Affliction “Banned”
Fedor Emelianenko def. Tim Sylvia via rear naked choke in less than a minute in R1.
If you thought Silva vs. Irvin was quick…
Andrei Arlovski def. Ben Rothwell via TKO in R3
Arlovski looked good and landed a lot of shots and an amazing flying knee.
Josh Barnett def. Pedro Rizzo via TKO in R2 (hard hit!)
Barnett went on to talk about other fighters “they’re all badasses, but they ain’t me.” Ouch!
Mark Hominick def. Savant Young via armbar in R2
Renato Sobral def. Mike Whitehead via decision after 3 rounds
Matt Lindland def. Fabio Negao via decision after 3 rounds
Antonio Roderio Nogueira def. Edwin Dewees via TKO in R1
Mike Pyle def. JJ Ambrose via rear naked choke in R1

UFC Fight Night 14
Anderson Silva def. James Irvin via TKO in R1
I’m glad I purchased the Affliction PPV because that fight was a letdown.
Brandon Vera def. Reese Andy via decision after 3 rounds
Frankie Edgar def. Hermes Franca via decision after 3 rounds
Cain Valesquez def. Jake O’Brien via TKO in R1 (vicious ground and pound!)
Kevin Burns def. Anthony Johnson via TKO in R3
CB Dollaway def. Jesse Taylor vs submission in R1

I’ll offer in depth cards eventually, but for right now I’m just going to deal with the main cards of the two upcoming events: the UFC’s Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin card and the Affliction Emelianenko vs. Sylvia card. I won’t try and keep my contempt for what the UFC is doing quiet, but I’ll at least acknowledge that they’re having an event and give a little insight.

Fedor vs. Sylvia will mark the real welcoming of the greatest champion in the history of the sport to the western hemisphere. Yes, I know he fought Mark Coleman in Vegas, but the fact of the matter is that this is his first serious fight in a while, and it’s stateside.

I’m excited to see the fight, but it’s a matchup Fedor has seen before, a taller, bigger striker. Expect Fedor to take it to the ground and finish. Normally, I wouldn’t be sure that Fedor could finish Big Tim, but given Tim’s recent loss to Nog and Fedor’s apparent eagerness to have people shut up about him not being as good as Nogueira, I expect him to now.

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Call it fear, nervousness, or aggressiveness, but the UFC is making a move to make sure another organization doesn’t step to up to the plate. As everyone in the MMA world knows, the first ever Affliction show which will feature two of the top heavyweights in the world in Fedor Emelianenko and Tim Sylvia will take place on July 19^th from the Honda Center in Anaheim California. The 19^th could be a night of decision making for many fans as the UFC is rumored to be working on a fight card that will likely feature the premier of Brandon Vera at 205 against “The Axe Murderer” Wanderlei Silva.

Dana White has not been quiet on other organizations and has said that he is not worried about anyone else in the MMA game. However this move gives another impression. The Affliction card is drawing UFC like anticipation and looks to have the best MMA PPV numbers outside of the UFC. To throw another wrench in their game, it is also rumored that the UFC card could take place on Spike for free.

While Wand and Vera could make for a great fight, many feel that Vera was an overrated overhyped fighter that never has put it all together in the cage. Wand is coming off of a great KO of championship pretender Keith Jardine, but really… That fight (and the other random thrown in fights) over Fedor vs.Timmy, Barnett vs. Rizzo, Rothwell vs. Arloski, and Whitehead vs. Babalu?

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The UFC heavyweight division is falling apart.

At best, it’s a nag with two broken legs trying to race against a field of less known, but far more aggressive and focussed competition. I wrote in a piece in January saying that if the UFC heavyweight division didn’t get an injection of talent, it wouldn’t recover on its own, and since the only serious pickup the division has made in the last few months is Shane Carwin, who was impressive at UFC 84, it’s impossible to say that the division has done any real work to recover.

They haven’t invested their money in a single top ten heavyweight since signing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, they’ve failed to put UFC champion Randy Couture back in the Octagon and they’ve turned Nogueira into their paper champion by matching him up with the incredibly undeserving Frank Mir, hoping that having both fighters coach a season of the Ultimate Fighter series will give them time to develop a serious contender.

In the meantime, Affliction has put together a single card consisting of four former world champions (three from the UFC and one from Pride), ressurected the career of legend Pedro “The Rock” Rizzo (a three time UFC top contender) and speckled the roster with more top ten big men than the UFC has on their entire roster.

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This should be interesting. I had just finished an article about Monte Cox and Adrenaline MMA when the news of a summer showdown between technically undefeated Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko and ex-UFC fighter Tim Sylvia. Will Emelianenko finally fight an ex-UFC heavyweight champion this summer? Better yet, will Emelianenko fully regain his undisputed #1 heavyweight status with a win over the much larger Tim Sylvia? Or will the nay sayers continue to beat on the Russian fighter for being inactive for too long even though he has clearly dominated most of his opponents?

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In a string of bad luck decisions/good luck decision consequences, the much maligned stretch of two B-level UFC pay-per-view broadcasts kicks off tomorrow night in Cincinnati. Perhaps, being more realistic, it’s bad luck, even more horrible luck (some might say karma), followed by decent luck in consequences. But Fedor signing with M-1, followed by Couture leaving the UFC abruptly, has left the Brandon Vera vs Tim Sylvia heavyweight bout meaning much more.

Add to that a main event with a hot crowd for hometown hero Rich Franklin in his quest to dethrone the heavily favored champion Anderson Silva, and we have the storyline aspects for a compelling night of fights. Many have questioned the fights themselves, but I would submit that those people, though they consider themselves “real” fans, are falling into a casual fan’s trap of looking for star power to guide them. I’m not sleeping on this card, and I think it’ll be the kind of surprising strong show the last UFC trip to Ohio provided. You know the one where an old man grabbed the heavyweight crown to cap a solid show, all said and done.

We in the MMA blog world, and those who put their blogs into a more authentic-looking traditional sports journalism form, tend to micromanage every Mixed Martial Arts related decision. Certainly this is true of the largest MMA company in the world, the Ultimate Fighting Championships, and its public face, Dana White. Dana hates the online bloggers and media (you make your own distinctions of who is what, as I do), and they in turn make a story out of anything he says or does. It’s a cute, if not tiring, war that yield some great stories and a lot of babble talk. Perhaps this is never more true than this instance because with a perceived weak card, the focus will be much more on what Dana does and says during the entire weekend, than what goes on inside the ring from 10pm until 1am, Eastern.

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Check out an article I wrote for Sprawl-n-Brawl.com here about how TUF is good for the Sport. Adam Morgan has been kind enough to let me write for his site as he focuses some of his efforts for 5 Oz of Pain with Sam Caplan while Sam focuses his efforts on working as the head editor of ProElite.com! I am still looking for writers for MMA Opinion so please email me or visit the Contact page.

It looks like the card for UFC 77 is set to go and although there should be some exciting matchups, I don’t see a fun middleweight title fight - at least not for Rich Franklin. You can say that Anderson Silva is over-rated, but I don’t see anyone beating this guy unless they find a way to exploit his game plan because Silva always seems to have an answer to whatever you throw at him. Hopefully we don’t see a repeat of Franklin prematurely crumpling to the ground again for the sake of an exciting fight.

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