Affliction and everything after…

Fedor is always ready to fight. Even at the park!

So Affliction has called it quits in the fight promotion business after the cancellation of their upcoming pay-per-view. While failing to find a suitable victim for their heavyweight champ Fedor Emelianenko – after Josh Barnett was revealed to be on the juice! – the company realized they were bleeding cash by the second and tapped out, thus proving once again that it’s impossible for an MMA promoter in the States to run up against the UFC. Elite couldn’t do it with a primetime network TV deal, Bodog couldn’t do it will a reckless billionaire investor and Affliction couldn’t do it with Fedor  as their champion.

Jonathan Snowden at mmapayout.com has his own compelling theory as to what killed Affliction however – he blames Randy Couture.

The upside of all of this is that it could pave wave the way for Fedor to fight Brock Lesnar to determine the true undisputed heavyweight champion. Which would be insane. Fedor’s team is reportedly in the US and willing to meet with UFC boss Dana White. What happens now will depend not on strength or fighting styles, but upon money and the big Russian’s willingness to cede control of his career to White’s American empire.

To deal with Fedor is to deal with his entourage as well as the numerous strings they’ve already attached. White would be nuts to sign any fighter – let alone one who might beat his champ – to a one fight contract. But Fedor wants to be able to make his own decisions about who to fight, not have his fight card handed to him by a boss. It’s a unique situation and one that would never exist were it not for the fact that White sees two things in Fedor: dollar bills and perhaps the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time.

Fedor vs. Hong Man Choi

Really?

So this is weird...

Tag Team Back Again! Straight from the “MMA today is really just the old days of pro-wrestling” department – Tag-Team MMA! Seriously!

The flaws with this sort of match arrangement are obvious from the start – whoever manages to catch the first tag gains a huge advantage and once one team member is tapped, the other is basically left in a handicap match against two opponents.

Purists will see this as a bastardization of the sport and I’d be hard pressed to disagree. Still, one can’t help but imagine how exciting such pairings might be in the UFC should Dana White ever lose his mind completely.